Lost Creatures
by Nikoru-chan
Summary: Loki's been hauled back to Asgard, judged, bound and sentenced for his crimes. Chapter XXIV posted. Letting Loki speak is always dangerous. Always. Asking Loki to speak for you? Even more so, as Thor and Fury are about to find out.
1. Chapter 1

Lost Creatures

Disclaimer: The characters portrayed herein belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, Disney (or so I'm told). In short, not me. I am making no profit from this work of fanfiction, unless you count enjoying myself immensely as profit, in which case, my intangible gains are substantial.

_Author's Note: Having been incited to it by my enjoyment of 'The Avengers', I have finally seen 'Thor'. I liked it less than 'The Avengers', but nevertheless a few things in it sparked my curiosity, and other bits made me think "hang on a mo', when you look at that bit in the context of 'Avengers'. . ." and I've always been a reader of the Norse myths. This fic is the result of all of that._

Prologue.

AVENGERS AVENGERS AVENGERS

Loki had not, in the end, gotten that drink.

To be fair, nor had he immediately gotten the gag, though the manacles were more or less a done deal from the first moment of his captivity.

Both muzzle and shackles were Asgardian, of Dwarven make with Odin's enchantments woven through them despite the older deity's heavy-hearted regret - Thor knew - against just such an eventuality necessitating their use. But the Allfather, lamenting the circumstances though he might, was too canny and pragmatic a ruler to risk a world - or two, for that matter - on the whims of his maddened, mischievous, wayward younger son. As the invading army of Chitauri had demonstrated, his caution, though argued against by Thor, had proven him right. Despite his own hesitancy, in the end Thor could not fault his father's foresight, and had pulled out the enchanted bonds.

Still, though he fettered his brother himself, Thor could not bring himself to use the gag, at least not at first.

However, after his initial silver-tongued drollery, his brother had behaved in a manner most unlike himself. Though he tried to keep up the facade, it rapidly became clear that his early coherence, his sarcastic eloquence in the Stark building penthouse, was purely a cover.

Oh, the defeated trickster stood tall while his guards were in the room, arrogant, cold and unreachable. It wasn't until they left, that he seemed to shrink into himself, apparently insensate of the video cameras he'd been so quick to make use of as part of his psychological warfare on the carrier. Shaking and sweating, he seemed to battle with himself in the cell in which he was unceremoniously deposited.

And it was like this, shaking in a corner, clutching his head and quivering, that Thor found him, when he went to remonstrate with his brother one last time, to see if he would provide any information about his Chitauri co-conspirators for the mortal, Fury.

"Brother?" He asked, noting the chill sweat bathing the slight figure. Perhaps the green monster had hit him too hard, perhaps he was seriously injured, bleeding out in a mortal cell while his older brother had sat and eaten the strange meat with his Avenger brothers-in-arms . . .

But a hand on cool skin, before Loki flinched back from his touch, allayed his fears.

"I'm . . . I'm not your brother!" Loki muttered, seemingly half distracted.

"You are, whether birthed so or not, my own dear little brother. And you are going home with me." Thor said gently, his words meant as a balm, a reassurance.

"No!" Loki snarled, eyes flashing as the thunder god snagged his full attention, though the fresh beading of sweat on his brow dictated the effort which that took.

It was most strange, Thor decided, how his brother's eyes shifted in the cell's halogen light. Here they looked a murky blue-green. On the roof of the Stark building they had seemed a bright azure. At home on Asgard, he was sure, the multicoloured sky would return them to their proper rich emerald.

But his eyes aside, the twisted, half-mad half-terrified expression Loki wore was ill-suited to his face, and something in it knotted Thor's guts, making him speak more harshly than he might have wished. The resulting conversation was one he'd regret for an aeon.

"Come brother, you are merely frightened of Odin's Justice!"

"Of his revenge? why yes, I am. I will meet no 'justice' at his whim."

"Brother!" Thor sputtered, enraged, "Our father is ever fair!"

"You jest. Surely you realise that. Unlike you, I am not a favoured offspring: I will fair ill in his hands." Loki pointed out bluntly, either unaware or unperturbed by the literal thunderclouds gathering over the other god's head.

"He is fair to us both! I was banished and stripped of power at his order for my transgressions!"

"Thor, you were a full-grown man about to be crowned king when you defied his direct command, invaded a sovereign world, overthrew a treaty, single-handedly re-kindled one of the bitterest wars Asgard has ever fought, and then yelled obscenities at his face. Your banishment for that lasted a week, was to a pleasant, populated world with no grudge against Asgard, and the means of ending your exile travelled on the same Bifrost bridge as yourself!" Loki's voice dripped sarcasm, "a 'fair judgement' by Odin indeed. How very nonpartisan of him. Not the faintest hint of nepotism."

"So you acknowledge yourself that father is just and fair in his treatment of us!"

"Perhaps of you: Have you forgotten what happened, when I asked in all innocence, why I was forbidden seidr-casting when he himself had practiced it? I was chained in the dark, bound by the entrails of one of my own creations, while poison was poured in my eyes to burn out the words of the seidr I'd supposedly read, with my mouth sewn shut to stop me speaking the chants I had created."

"You created nothing! You stole those secrets from forbidden scrolls in the weapons vault!"

"Is that what they told you? At the time I didn't even know those scrolls existed! I figured out how to build those constructs by extending the principles outlined in our tutors' books and watching the Volur cast their spells!"

"You were eight years old!"

"Precisely! How is that a 'just' punishment for a childish little bit of intellectual curiosity?"

"No, brother, you lie with your silver tongue. No child could have created that Serpent, that Wolf, not without help!"

"Silver-tongued I may be, but once again you call me 'liar'! Why do you never believe me! Why do I even bother trying to speak to you?" Loki's shoulders slumped. "Have not my word for it then, since you will never take it. Heimdall sees all: Go, ask him what he saw that day. Then, if you're still unsure, inquire of the Guardian of the Vault if I ever went there alone as a child."

Loki turned away, a desolate defeat colouring his very being. "Even when they both answer in the negative, you won't believe me. You never do. You will take me back to Asgard, deliver me to Odin's 'tender mercies'. You will call yourself my brother - and a good brother - for doing so. You will do this, and be proud, and you will never care to wonder why I allowed myself to fall from the Bifrost bridge."

Still shivering and seemingly exhausted by the exchange, Loki turned away, slumping against the wall, eyes closing. His words struck deep though, a bitter blow to Thor's heart. Uncertain if he could sustain another, the god of thunder turned, rummaging in his belt, before bringing out gag.

Wordlessly, he slipped it onto his unresistant sibling, ignoring the flickering of eyelids as awareness resurrected itself. Disregarding the widening of green eyes that spoke to him of acute betrayal and hurt, a soul-wound worse than the one Loki's words had dealt, Thor had never felt so small.

"It's just until we get home, brother." Thor said, uncertain whom it was he was consoling. "Just until then."

AVENGERS AVENGERS AVENGERS

Please C+C: this is the start of a longer story arc, (well, this and the five pages of notes and snarky Loki-banter I've got stashed in my computer) and I'd dearly love to know what people think about it.

NOTES:

Seidr = spell craft/magic. In Norse mythology, usually practiced by women, with overtones of 'unmanliness' if men attempted it (along with reports of the execution of said men, so, y'know. . .a pretty frowned upon ability.) Loki uses allegations of Seidr-practice as an insult against Odin in the Edda Poetica, and other stories I've read imply that in at least some version of the Odin mythology, Odin's a skilled practitioner. I have _no_ idea if this is canon in Marvel-verse, but I notice nobody other than Loki and possibly Odin in his Odinsleep seem able to use it in the Thor movie, so I figured maybe there'd been a few repercussions to Loki's gifts and his skill set development while growing up.

Volur = plural of Volva. The female shamanesses/sorceresses of Norse legend. Practitioners of Seidr.

The eye-poisoning, mouth sewing, entrail-binding episode does occur in Norse mythology, likewise Loki is known to have produced several offspring, including a wolf, a serpent, an eight-legged horse, etc. etc. all with some pretty impressive stories of their own. I've chosen to turn these into magical constructs rather than progeny, largely because of the directions I want to take the story in later. Again, I've no idea if these are consistent with Marvel canon.

Feedback would be much appreciated


	2. Chapter 2

LOST CREATURES

Chapter II

The brothers love each other, they really do; Thor is certain of it. But, as he's becoming acutely aware, that's no guarantee they understand each other. Loki has always been complicated: pliable and tractable on so many things, immovable on others. Like studying magic. Fortunately, Odin takes this into account in his sentencing.

Returning to Asgard, it is Loki's trangressions that are addressed by the Asgardian king, Loki who is punished, by Odin's decree. And yet, Thor feels keenly the bite of suffering himself.

Loki speaks not a word to him, and to have his brother back, yet so utterly unreachable, is a torture all of its own.

EARLIER

Physically, the god of mischief is readily accessible. He has been throughout the entire ordeal. Indeed, the stomach-roiling world shift provided by Tesseract-powered transporter seemed to agree far better with his dark-haired sibling than Thor himself, if the rampant nausea he had to fight as they arrived on the tattered remnants of the Bifrost was anything to go by. By the time they'd journeyed into the city-proper, Thor had his queasy belly under control. Throughout the trip Loki's impassive face never shifted. Tranquil, blank, his startling jade eyes utterly lifeless, he'd followed Thor's instructions mechanically, with neither eye contact, nor any of his usual fluid grace. Still, Thor doubts those eyes miss a single detail of the haphazard and woefully inadequate repair efforts on the bridge: a thankless, hopeless task that has stymied Asgard's best since Loki . . . fell.

The familiar hue of Loki's eyes under the Asgardian sky, back to their usual jade, is somehow worse with the blank defeat that also colours them.

Thor decides to blame that on the shackles and the gag, rather than the hopeless betrayed look that had smeared across his brother's face as he fitted the muzzle. No, it was not his actions, his base theft of the most powerful tool Loki had - the gift of words - that made his brother, even so physically close, become so completely remote.

No one greets them as they enter the city. There are no crowds, no joyous masses. While part of him regrets the lost chance for the celebration of his own successful return, Thor notes that it also spares his disgraced brother derision for his capture, his binding.

No Asgardian should tolerate such shameful bonds. To wear them is the ultimate ignominy.

At least, he **_thinks**_ his brother is just disgraced. It's not until they are ushered into the throne room, sees enthroned Odin on his dais in full regalia that he realises this is to be a formal ruling of punishment, not a family reunion.

Loki appears to realise it as well, or else he knew so from the start. Though his shoulders tighten almost imperceptibly, his face remains the same blank, indifferent mask it has been since Thor slipped on the muzzle. Uneasily, the thunder god wonders if Loki wasn't correct; wether those last few spoken words, snarled out of desperate bitterness and spite before the gag silenced him, weren't also truth.

On Midgard, Loki was intuitively, vocally certain he'd see no mercy at their father's hands. As Odin remains pointedly seated, the throne room empty of all but the justice scribe - there solely to record the Allfather's laws and sentences - Thor wonders if the brunet's insight was not, in this case, more accurate than his own. Perhaps the Allfather is glad his adopted son is not dead, that his suicide off the Bifrost was a sham.

Perhaps, but nothing in his manner shows it.

Odin seems to have aged years as he speaks, his imposing presence and sonorous voice commanding Thor's complete attention. Loki seems as disinterested in his foster father as he is in anything else, the grandiloquent words rolling over and off him without so much as a pause. Nonetheless, Thor has no doubt the slender trickster is paying close attention.

"Thor Odinson," He booms gravely, "You have successfully retrieved your brother, Loki, from Asgard where he sought to make mischief and conquest, and from the Chitauri, with whom he conspired. You are a credit to Asgard and your parents." Thor cannot help but stand straighter at this; though he often hears it, praise from his father is still something he cherishes. Especially after his own banishment.

"Loki Odinson," Odin starts, ignoring the sudden stillness which colors Loki's slender frame at mention of the name, "You stand before me guilty of treasonously opening Asgard's heart to her enemies, of fraudulently taking the throne, of enticing the Frost Giant sovereign, Laufey, into an attack on your king." His staff hits the dias with a sharp crack as the grizzled old king of the gods stands. Uneasily, Thor recalls that it had been his own attack on the frost giants that had reignited hostilities between their nations, an attack he carried out on the Jotuns' home soil. In fact, he'd struck at the Jotun ruler first. But Odin is not finished.

"You stand guilty of regicide; of striking down Laufey in my very chambers. You stand guilty of attempting to use the Bifrost to destroy Jotunheim, one of the Nine Worlds of the Core. You stand guilty of subsequently destroying the Bifrost," Odin's staff crashes into the floor of the podium once more, cutting short Thor's abortive attempt to point out it was himself, not the mischief god, that had taken the celestial hammer to the Bifrost and razed it.

"You stand guilty of conspiring with creatures not of the nine realms, but of the darkness between the worlds. You stand guilty of invading Midgard, a sovereign world nonetheless under your brother's sworn protection, bringing him into potential dishonour." Again, the staff crashes down. Again, Thor flinches. When he'd made the plea to the Allfather to use his seidr to allow his son to return to Midgard, when he'd pointed out that Odin had protected that world in the past, and that he'd given his word to continue his father's self-appointed task, he never thought his words would return like this. As a weapon, carving punishment into his younger brother.

"Of all these things, you stand guilty." Tall, remote and magnificent, a shining gold to Loki's silver and shadow, Odin's imposing presence seems to fill the room even as it appears to slide around the dead-eyed trickster, never quite reaching him. Thor flicks a worried glance at his impassive brother; surely now, if ever, is the time to show a little contrition.

But the mischief god looks, if anything, utterly bored.

"In sentencing you, I take into account the safety and sentiments of all of Asgard," Odin's reverberant speech fills the room. "A surprising number of those sentiments stand in support of some of your actions. Memories in Asgard are long; there are those who applaud your efforts to destabilise the Jotun monarchy and destroy the frost giants, if not the un-Asgardian underhandedness of your methods. There are those who understand your thirst for battle, if not your choice of these between-world Chitauri as allies. And there are many - very many - who remember your cunning, your creativity, and your flair for seidr, however unmanly those attributes may be."

Odin gestures to the scribe; face as passively blank as Loki's own, his stylus is nonetheless scratching frantically.

"Loki Odinson, for your crimes against the throne of Asgard, you are sentenced to silence. You will be collared; all may speak to you, but only to your family - and only with their leave - may you reply. For your crimes against Midgard, you are sentenced to remain shackled; your fetters will allow you to move through Asgard, but not to any other realm without the express permission of the ruling house of Asgard. This is solely because you will have need of your limited mobility. For the destruction of the Bifrost," And here Odin pauses, a faint smile, echoes of the cunning the old man was once famous for, before his canny second son eclipsed him, "You are charged with rebuilding the bridge, with reconnecting the Nine Realms."

Leaning slightly on his staff, the elder god steps lightly down the steps to stand in front of his boys, "You will, of course, have the full contents of your old chambers, as well as a new laboratory workshop, at your disposal. This task is one you must complete, and complete rapidly, though our other engineers and Volur have failed. Your punishment, should you fail, will rival that you endured as a youngster. As your king, so I judge you."

Gathering the two into a bear hug, Odin murmurs "As your father, I welcome you both home." Even as he wholeheartedly embraces his father, Thor cannot help but notice his brother stiffen, attempt to move away, before the ozone tang of Odin's seidr floods his nostrils. Stepping back after a long moment, he notices the gag is gone; an ugly, plain, heavy-looking iron collar rests around his brother's neck, matching manacles marring his wrists and ankles. Though a few loops of chain dangle from rings embedded in each of the restraints, they are not connected, will provide no limitation to Loki's movement. Though disfiguring, Thor finds himself obscurely glad that the irons are not linked; here, then, is some faint dignity for his captive brother.

"Come," says Odin, an invitation, not an order, "There is food waiting if you're hungry; a meal with your mother."

Odin moves to the side, nearing the remarkably plain door that leads to Odin and Freya's quarters. Thor doesn't hesitate to follow him; his father's praise is still warming his heart, and he cannot wait to see the joy on his mother's face when he presents her with her lost younger son, returned from the abyss. He's ravenously hungry himself, and he knows for a fact that Loki has eaten none of what was offered to him whilst a captive of S.H.I.E.L.D.

So it takes a few strides, shoulder to shoulder with his father, to realise that the faithful dark-haired shadow that used to stand ever-present a step behind him is not there. Turning, he sees only his brother's back, ramrod straight, as his deceptively rapid gait carries him out of the throne room in the direction of his own chambers.

Somehow, despite the fact that he's kept his word; he's saved Midgard, retrieved his brother alive and whole, and returned to Asgard the most gifted seidr-worker and master-smith it's ever known to re-establish the Bifrost, somehow, it's not enough.

Somehow, watching the battered, slender figure round a corner and vanish out of sight, it feels like a defeat.

Comments and criticism greatly appreciated!


	3. Chapter 3

LOST CREATURES III

It takes Loki less than a day to realise that no one will work with him. Wether from fear of Odin, or distaste for his company, none can - or will - say. He suspects it is as much the latter as the former; never popular, he cannot see that changing with a sentence hanging over him. Particularly when that sentence all but demands he flaunts his intelligence, his seidr, his mastery of smithery and craftmanship in front of all.

His _difference_.

Ignored, derided, belittled, but never forgotten. Asgard has never quite forgiven its second prince for his skill in such a womanly art, nor for his creative intelligence in employing it. Now, Odin has ordered him to use it for the benefit of the realm, the restoration of Asgard's glory. The Allfather's sentence will force him to be out and about in Asgard, casting seidr all the way, rebuilding that which - to their shame - the Asgardians cannot manage alone.

Half of him wonders why the great Odin doesn't simply strip him to his blue skin, and be done with it. The resentment from the godly populace couldn't possibly be worse; he's always been a shadowed contrast to his mountain-like warrior of a brother. Difficult, Gordian twilight to the spun gold of Thor's noon, the very complexity of his nature an antithetical foil that makes Thor's simplicity shine all the brighter. And Asgard does so love its golden Crown Prince.

Thor, who has decried the Frost Giants throughout his life, who shouts his unbridled hatred of the monsters of his childhood at every opportunity. Who travelled by Bifrost to pick a fight with the Jotun king, and to slaughter by the hundreds the Frost Giant warriors.

Thor, who could only shine the brighter were he to be contrasted against the Jotun-blue of his brother's skin.

Thor, who - before his banishment to Midgard - would probably have slain his brother on sight at the first hint of that indigo skin, the first flash of crimson eyes. After Midgard? Who can say.

But somehow, astoundingly, while it seems to content Odin to see the ignominy of his second son festooned with shackles, bedecked with irons, adorned with fetters, it nonetheless pleases him to leave the youngster pale.

The iron around his neck sits frost-cold and heavy against his skin. Permanently icy, perhaps leaving Loki cloaked in Asgardian form is merely another way of tormenting the mischief god; doubtless the chill would be less unpleasant had he the blue skin of a Jotun and the temperature preference to match.

But the mind of the Allfather - while often predictable - can be equally unfathomable, Loki has long since realised. Perhaps there is method to his madness, perhaps all is whim.

Loki finds it hard to care overmuch.

His rooms are as blandly tidy as they've ever been: Loki'd long since learned not to leave anything precious to him in his chambers. Thor has ever been a frequent visitor, and one who rarely knocked, and even more rarely asked before touching - and breaking - things. Likewise his warriors three, almost invariably by his side, have never been any more couth than their leader. After the initial, mild surprise that the chambers seem untouched, Loki knows there's little enough to occupy him here. Frowning slightly, ignoring the hunger clawing at his ribs, he grabs a few sheathes of blank parchment and his inkwell, and heads determinedly for the workshop his father has promised, scribbling notes as he goes.

The large workroom in question is empty; several work stations have been abandoned, hastily cleared. It takes Loki mere moments to realise that the Allfather has held to his promises exactly; here is where 'Asgard's best' have toiled to repair the bridge. Where they have laboured and studied and attempted for _years_ to make the Bifrost function. They're gone, now. Released to less hopeless tasks.

They're gone and, with a show of petty spite, they've taken all their research with them. All record of what they've tried so far, of how it failed. All building blocks which he could use to start his task somewhere that is not the very beginning. _Years_ worth of labour, by each of them, that will have to be re-done and improved upon by him alone.

Loki doesn't know whether to howl or scream. So instead he laughs. Silently, choked by the collar around his neck, he laughs until the tears spill down his cheeks, pool under the heavy iron banding his throat. There is no release, no hushed note of his soul cracking under the hysteria. Odin's geas is in effect; Loki makes no sound.

It lasts minutes. It lasts forever.

When he comes back to himself, his mind is icily, refreshingly clear. The Volur have, he supposes, done him a favour; by denying him their work, they deny also Odin Allfather the opportunity to claim that his disgraced second Prince had help with the task he was solely charged with. Imagining Odin's displeasure at having this out, this opportunity to punish Loki further, stolen away by his own minions slashes a feral smile across the mischief god's lips. He doubts that was what the Volur had in mind. Their loss.

In the corner of the workroom is a forge, and looking at it Loki blinks in recognition. It is beautiful; spacious, well-laid out, and unique in all of Asgard. Loki has few happy recollections of his childhood, and most of them revolve around a forge very similar to this, though worlds away. It is of Dvergar design, and he had spent much time watching as the Sons of Ivaldi fashioned their marvels in just such a forge, melding seidr and smithery into wonders such as the spear Gungnir. His curiousity encouraged by those very dwarven sons, his own stuttering attempts at smithery rewarded with the praise he never heard on Asgard.

It had been a joyous time, that year. A year with the dwarves while he stood not yet old enough - not strong enough - to join Thor in warrior training. A treasured memory, over far too soon as he was recalled to Asgard, to stand once more in the shadow of his elder brother. Forever falling short of the blond's martial prowess, forever told to 'know his place' when he offered strategy in place of strength, forever called lesser and 'coward' for using the seidr that was his gift in lieu of the muscles that perpetually failed to develop into the thews expected of a Son of Odin, a Brother of Thor. Forever ignored, deemed 'jealous' when he tried to raise his concerns about Thor's arrogance, his recklessness with Odin before the blond god's coronation. . .

Shuddering slightly, Loki remembers the last time he stood in this particular workroom, next to this specific forge. For all Thor hadn't been welcome in the Ivali forge, he was more than well-received in this one. This forge was where the dwarf Brokk and his brother Eitri had labored, where . . .

Well, that just meant Loki would have to redeem this forge to his own use, too. Achieving that would be a subtle spit in the Allfather's eye. One he'd be delighted to make, in return for this wound, this dagger through the soul; the injury of being chained to work, silently, in _this_ forge. The place of his first silencing.

There are no stitches through his lips, this time.

Loki is sorely tempted to make Odin regret that.

But later. For now, well, for now Loki has the liberty of complete solitude, of utter abandoment, to enjoy.

Silence works both ways.

A gesture, and the fires of the forge spring to life; they're linked to the heart of a dying star, and it's a mere moment to _connect_, to make them blaze hotter than ever in their shielded casing. It is the work of seconds to throw the notes he has scribbled onto parchment into the flames, and there is a certain fierce joy in watching the runes of Asgard's written language char to nothingness. He's no need of notes to communicate with others, if there are no others with whom to work.

Drawing to himself a new sheath, Loki begins his note-taking once more. He needs to define what, exactly, it is that the Bifrost _does_, what it provides, what it needs to effectuate its tasks. Then he can work out how to make it perform again. The language he writes in is one he's always treasured, though he cannot say who taught it to him, nor has he seen it anywhere written out. There were snatches, hints of it in the golden tracery of the Bifrost control globe, he knows. And suggestions of it in the box that held the Tesseract.

But his mind shies away from that thought before it can fully form, and he does not chase it.

Besides, Odin had beaten him for this 'secret code' of his as a child, well before he'd ever touched the cursed, blessed, blue box. Beaten him, and charged him with limiting himself to the runes of what he'd been told were his forefathers.

As if the runic language could ever be large enough to encompass his thoughts, to express his ideas.

No, he needs another tongue for that. One fit to the task of rebuilding a bridge between worlds. Perhaps Odin despises the circular whirls of vocabulary because it may be Jotun-speak (though Loki doubts that), perhaps because it is something else. Certainly, it is neither Aesir, nor Vanir.

But regardless of where the circular codex comes from, in the silence it gives shape to Loki's thoughts, and wings to his imaginings. And if none from Odin's court can read it? Well, there's the rub; Odin has not sentenced him to communicate his skills with others, if anything, he's been forbidden it. It is not the mischief god's fault if the old, one-eyed ruler has failed to think through every aspect of the sentence he's handed down.

Rebuilding the Bifrost is a herculean task.

But for Loki? Well, he will make his punishment _fun_.

NOTES:

As always, I've cherry-picked which bits of Norse Mythology I want to mix in, and then modified them mercilessly. And I've still not read any Marvel comics. (I wouldn't have a clue where to start!) So this is very much based on Movie canon, though I'm weaving in a few bits and pieces from various sources that came to mind when I watched the Avengers and later, Thor.

I'm not entirely sure of how this characterisation of Loki is going, as I'm having far too much fun planning - and writing - the snark he's going to get into when (a) he can finally talk freely again and before that (b) when he actually deigns to talk to Thor. Snarky Loki is so much fun to write!

I'd love some feedback; let me know what you think!


	4. Chapter 4

LOST CREATURES IV

To his eternal shame, it takes Thor a full three days to realise that, since their return to Asgard, his brother has been starving; a combination of Odin's geas preventing him from asking anyone for food to be brought to him, and his own sheer stubborness preventing him from seeking out his family's table results in Loki's hunger, though not Thor's obliviousness to it.

It also takes their mother - who asks Thor hopefully each evening mealtime if she might expect her prodigal younger son to make an appearance - noting on the third day after Loki's sentencing that the kitchens haven't received any orders for food to Loki's chambers, nor to the workshop, and was Thor's little brother choosing to eat only with his older sibling, perhaps?

Thor hasn't seen as much of his little brother as he would wish in those three days, and in that time they've certainly never broken bread together. Uneasily, Thor becomes certain that if left to his own devices? The dark-haired seidr-worker might well allow himself to waste to nothing before he bent his head to the necessity of food. Certainly, the fickle mischief god has made no mention of his famine when the thunderer sought him out.

His brother has made no mention of anything, in fact, despite Thor's repeated invitations to do so.

The sunlight is spilling through the windows of the forge-come-workshop that has become Loki's domain when Thor steals in, a platter piled high with salmon and apples and the brilliant little red berries his brother has always loved. He moves quietly; the trickster is not above evading him, vanishing fleetly to the library or his chambers or somewhere - anywhere - else should he sense his brother coming. For all his speed, Thor has not the trickster's stealth, even without magic, and unless he captures - corners - the other first, the thunderer cannot quite keep apace. He's gotten quite adept at hunting down his brother though, and it is a strange change from their youth, where Loki would struggle to catch up with him, to stay abreast of him and his warriors three. Now, if Loki has half an opportunity to be gone before Thor finds him, chances are, he's taken it and the Thunder god must search high and low for his brother to make his latest attempt at communication. None of Thor's friends have yet clapped eyes on the trickster god, though nor have they tried particularly hard.

Thor had thought, initially, that Odin's judgment would prove a boon; for what better way to express his feelings to his brother than if said brother was unable to reply, to twist his words as he uttered them, shape them into weapons to fling back into his face. But it becomes clear that this 'boon' is not one that serves the thunder god, for all that it punishes his silvertongued brother as much as the gag likely ever could.

He's planned his speeches to his sibling with as much care as any he's ever delivered at court. He's tried appealing to their brotherly love, to their mother's hope, even tried challenging Loki's thoughts and accusing him of jealousy, of madness, of pure chaos. Each time, when he's finally caught up with his brother, when he's been able to give voice to his sentiments, he's been met with a perfectly blank mask on his brother's face. No answer, no hint as to 'why' nor to 'how can we fix this?'

Each time Thor has found the other, the thunderer has begun by speaking his piece. Each time he has finished by stating, almost begging, "Now, brother, I give you leave to reply."

Each time silence has met his words. He may have _given_ his leave to reply, but he cannot force Loki to _take_ it.

Even magically silenced and under geas, it seems, his brother can force communication to be on his terms alone. And at the moment? Well, it seems Loki has no desire to speak with the thunder god at all.

But this afternoon will be different, Thor is certain. For one thing, he's brought food. For another, he's left Sif and Fandral in the training arenas, Volstagg in the pantry after the two of them have raided enough choice tidbits for Thor to take to his brother. He knows his friends would not approve of their restored crown prince playing a servant's game of fetch and carry for the convicted criminal, but his mother's comments about Loki's eating habits - or lack thereof - have cut a little too close to home. When he finds Loki, working with ferocious concentration, apparently insensate of his presence, at the large workbench in one end of the forge, he takes a minute to really _look _ at his little brother.

Thin. Far too lean, as though falling through the spaces between the worlds took a knife to him and pared back any and all softness the mischief god might ever have possessed. Fever-bright eyes, fixed and all but glowing with genius, focus on the tools in slender, clever hands. The sheen of the emerald eyes is matched by two bright spots of high colour on the otherwise-pale cheeks, tired grey smudges beneath his eyes speaking of an age since last the mischief god slept.

His brother looks driven. And yet, not maddened. This wild flurry of creation, of manic genius, suits the slender brunet. He is grace itself, in his old, loose leggings and a threadbare green sleeveshirt, as he spins and dances through the workroom. Behind him blazes colour and light, and delicate, fragile-seeming machinery of a kind Thor has never seen before. With a start, Thor realises his brother has made the skeleton of a control panel; there a space for Heimdal to stand, and there perhaps where he would spin his sword, to activate the Bifrost, were it once more whole. Faint sparks of colour, the familiar opalescence of the now-dark Bifrost, spin out in weak tendrils from around the golden devices his brother is forging.

Starving, hounded by Thor's insistent attention and his own determined evasion, bound by an Allfather geas, his brother has accomplished more in three days than twenty of Asgard's brightest Volur have managed in two years.

The thought is sobering, awe-inspiring, and Thor shifts uncomfortably. Perhaps here, then, is the real reason all of Asgard has determinedly thought so little and been so dismissive of what Loki could accomplish with his seidr and his unmatched curiosity. To give encouragement to this frightening genius? Without a task and a leash to reign it in? How near to the brink of disaster would they teeter? Asgard has been at the peak of civilization for an aeon; unchanging and perfect. What winds of change would such a mind, given free reign, blast through it? It doesn't bear thinking about. Asgard is changeless, eternal, perfection. Thor would shed blood - his own and others - to keep it so. Leave the artificing and smithery, the invention and development to the Dvergar, and more recently to the Midgardians. To any realm but the perfect, shining jewel that is Asgard. He'll take the products of those Dvergar forges, the Mjolnirs and the Gungnirs, and use them to defend his realm's supremacy. But suffer their development on his doorstep? No.

No, far better to grind down those that would make as if to do this on Asgard, to force his seidr-gifted intellect of a brother into an ill-suited warrior mould. Thor finds, now, that he understands his father, understands Odin's attempts to force Loki to conform to Asgard norms, to develop as a warrior rather than a thinker. He understands it, this desire to preserve Asgard as the jewel that it is even at the cost of his brother's mind.

He comprehends his father's priorities, and puts aside his half-formed regret, the wish that he could have introduced Loki to the Master-smith, Stark, in a friendlier manner than the pair had met. Perhaps, had he a friend of like mind to his own, perhaps his brother would not have fractured so spectacularly. Not that it matters. Odin was likely correct; an unbridledly inventive Loki could only have spelled more disaster, more anguish. The Allfather had read the signs of Loki's innate creativity when the trickster god was eight, had moved to protect Asgard by punishing them out of his second son. Though, as Thor well knew, that hadn't worked. Then, their father had co-opted the fruits of that innovation when he'd taken Loki's creation, Sleipnir, as his steed in an odd sort of compromise when it became clear that, chained or not, poisoned and mouth-stitched or not, Loki could not be forced to bend.

The silent compromise, the curbing though not annulling of Loki's seidr-based inventiveness, had lasted until Thor's own banishment; Loki making small 'mischiefs', Odin ignoring or punishing them if they got too large. Loki learning and mastering small fragments of seidr, of technology, Odin ignoring his younger son's discoveries and deriding his developments in favour of praising the elder's military prowess. The balance had lasted for centuries. And Asgard, unchanging, perfect Asgard, had prospered.

And Thor wonders what dire threat now rears that could make his father so very desperate as to throw away that compromise, let slip that conditioning, minimise his leashes, and let his genius second son create on the scale of grandeur he was perhaps always meant for.

At the moment, it matters not. At the moment, all that matters is the pale wanness of his brother's face, the boniness of his shoulders. Half-crazed, half-stifled, second-best or not, Loki is his _brother_, no matter how estranged they might be.

Worldlessly, he sets the platter down on a more-or-less clear bench, one which Loki, in his erratic orbit around the room, will have to pass right about . . . now.

It seems that all it takes to stop a mischief god dead in his tracks is some fish and a few pieces of fruit. If he'd known that earlier, he and his allies on Midgard might have had a far easier time of it. A slender hand reaches towards one of the apples; a choice specimen from Idunn's orchards, and Thor finds himself holding his breath. It is not unlike stalking a wild animal, in that he fears that the slightest word from himself will see his brother flee, wordlessly opting to continue to starve. The thought is heartbreaking.

He watches in silence as Loki demolishes the apple in a few sharp bites, moves on to delicately - but rapidly - devour the fish, saving his favourite berries for last. The god of mischief eats neatly, but quickly, and with an absent sort of distraction. One hand forking food daintily into his mouth, the other continues its incessant scrawling of some odd circular sigils. Thor frowns; he doesn't recognise the script - which doesn't really surprise him, his brother was ever-better at book-learning - but it annoys him that these scratchings can hold Loki's attention where he cannot.

He's planned out what he wants to say, as the last crimson berry passes his brother's lips. He's going to invite Loki (again) for dinner with their mother, ask (again) why Loki chose Midgard for his mischiefs, demand (again) that Loki reveal what the Chitauri wanted, and what they offered him for it.

As the light from the doorway behind him is blocked, as Loki looks up at him - _past him_ - and pales, Thor realises his plans are for naught. There is no way now his brother will acknowledge his presence, nor take a moment to speak to him.

Not when Odin Allfather stands in the doorway of the workshop, single eye taking in the extraordinary progress his son has already made, his expression carefully neutral.

NOTES: I don't know how true to Marvel Comics-verse this is, but the thing that always struck me as a child reading the Eddas and Norse myths, was that none of Asgard's great devices or treasures were actually _made_ by Aesir or Vanir. Loki comissioned several things from the Sons of Ivali (Dvergar), and several more were made by the dwarves Eitri and Brokkr _in_ Asgard, but made by the Asgardians themselves? Nope. The closest things to made-in-Asgard-by-Aesir were Loki's offspring, all of which were biological (and hey, Angrboda was a giantess, not Aesir). Which got me wondering if, in the Marvel universe, Odin - and by extension Asgard - sees Loki's unabashed curiosity and creativity as un-Asgardian at best and a danger to Asgard at worst, since they're not traits usually displayed by Aesir/Vanir men. After all, Loki's adoption seems to be a pretty closely held secret in the movies.

As always, C+C is greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!


	5. Chapter 5

LOST CREATURES V

Odin says nothing for a long moment and just looks, his single eye playing across the workshop's loaded benches, the banked power of the forge in the corner glowing sullenly, the many reams and rolls of parchment scattered around the room, heaped upon several of the available workspaces. . . and Loki.

Loki, who has stood up as soon as the Allfather entered, the remnants of the half-eaten meal Thor has brought him forgotten. Loki, whose pose has slid - perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not - into the loose-limbed combat-ready defensive stance all Asgardians learn as soon as they can walk. Loki who watches Odin inspect his workplace with a guarded expression that seems a mix of wary caution, every bit of respect he's ever accorded a sleeping bilgesnipe, and a strong desire to be elsewhere.

There is no love in Loki's face, not even a hint of affection in the poison-bright green eyes as he watches Odin inspect his work, and Thor's heart cracks a little more; if _he_ - who has always had faith in his brother - cannot see even a fractured remnant of what had been a familial relationship between the two, how much worse must this seem to his father?

His brother is back; (more or less) whole, (reasonably) hale and (ensorcelled to be) obedient to their father. But somehow he's never been more distant.

The silence in the workshop, punctuated by the odd hiss from the forge, strikes Thor as deeply, unbearably wrong; always, Loki has bantered, mouth never pausing. Even as children, barring that point when his mouth was stitched up, Loki's silvery words have talked the two of them out of (and into) a great deal of trouble.

But while the child Loki had gradually returned to loquacity after his punishment ended, when he and Father had compromised on Loki's seidr, Thor cannot quite see the same happening now; the eight year old mischief god had, for all his devotion to his learning, still worn his heart on his sleeve, and at his core was his love for his family. Though he'd been blind at the time to miss it, Thor suddenly understands it, now.

He understands it, because the sentiment is so utterly lacking in his brother's stance and aspect that it is as if the mischief god has been replaced by one of his own doppelgangers, and the lack of it makes Thor heartsick.

_What happened to you, little brother? What happened in that Abyss through which you fell, that you now watch your father - the man for whom you murdered the Jotun's ruler, for whom you attempted to destroy a planet, for whom you desperately wanted to be worthy - with such distaste?_

Knowing Loki, he doubts he will ever find out.

For his own part Loki watches Odin with cautious attention. It is a strange sensation, to stare at the Allfather and feel . . . nothing. Logically, he knows he should be terrified. A lifetime ago - before his fall from the Bifrost - that terror would have been laced with love and longing; a burning desire to stand as equal to his brother in his father's estimation. To be worthy_. _Now, in place of terror, of love, there is simply the strength of absolute certainty: The utter surety that Odin is cruel and capricious, and if Loki doesn't tread carefully, both of those traits are likely to come out - to the mischief god's detriment. With a well hidden start, Loki realises just what that emotional shift means.

He can lie to Odin.

The possibility is mind-boggling, life changing, and he can feel the paradigms of his existence shatter and re-form. In binding him, in forcing him to bend to his punishment, in stripping him of his words - his most powerful tool - Odin has inadvertently liberated him of the last few wisps of his childhood restraint. With a flash of insight, Loki realises that Odin would never have relinquished that power over his wayward adopted child willingly or knowingly, that the grizzled elder god probably had never even realised he held such a boon, and that he will be utterly unaware of it's absence now.

Shackled, silenced, under geas, and with his expression carefully blanked, Loki feels . . . free.

In front of him, Odin's gaze finishes surveying the room and comes to rest squarely on his second son.

Odin gestures suspiciously at the whorls and circles scribbled haphazardly across a scrap of parchment on a bench (and on the tabletop itself, when Loki had been seized by an idea for the Bifrost and an acute lack of vellum.) "Your task is to rebuild the Bifrost, not scribble an edda in an illegible foreign tongue, and while you've enough liberty to carry out your task, even this much freedom can be easily curtailed." Bushy white brows draw together, ire building in the single eye the king has left at his son's silence.

Loki would laugh at the threats if he could; it seems that the Allfather has forgotten that part of his own geas means Loki needs the permission of his 'family' to speak.

An interesting question, that; does the hex-accepted definition of 'family' coincide with Odin's, or with Loki's own? Loki hasn't had the stomach to test the boundaries of the curse - to attempt deal with Thor's blustering since his return - and given the way the Thunderer had gagged him on Midgard rather than listen to a few home truths, Loki can't quite see that he will want to converse with the blond anytime soon. Besides, the purpose of all of Thor's unilateral speeches has been painfully transparent: The thunder god wants absolution; forgiveness for applying the gag that stripped his brother of his most defining feature, and reassurance that Loki's madness and fall was not his fault. And Loki? Loki's not in a forgiving mood, nor feeling kind enough to craft a lie to soothe Thor's feelings.

"Why, Loki, do you plan in this script? What intentions are you hiding?" Odin demands, finger tracing a particularly complex diagram. "As your father, I give you leave to reply," he adds, almost carelessly, though his gaze never wavers from the slight figure in front of him.

A myriad of answers flit through Loki's mind, and he briefly considers pointing out that as there is no assistance in this task, the ability of anyone else to read his notes is irrelevant. Truly, though, it's been so much fun having free reign to create with his hands and his smithery and his seidr that the intrusion of an assistant would be unwelcome. Besides, he doesn't really want to give Odin the bright idea of assigning a thinly-disguised jailer to make his sentence even less pleasant. Doubtless, Odin was more concerned with the idea of the mischief god corrupting any would-be guard when he chose not to assign one, but Loki has come to enjoy that small liberty: No Asgardian warden would be anything but - at best - grudgingly tolerant of his work, and at worst? working with the derisive distaste for his seidr that is common to all of Asgard would be tiresome.

His delay in replying is apparently too long, and Odin's expression darkens further. "As your king, and the author of your sentence, I demand your reply!" He thunders, and his likeness to Thor in a temper is stunning.

Several things happen then, the first and foremost is a sudden increase in weight from the shackles around Loki's neck and limbs, which forces him crashing to his knees, head bowed and palms on the floor, in a parody of his usual grace. Behind him, he hears Thor make a strangled noise of distress.

_Kneel - or at least cower - before thy King,_ Loki thinks with a sardonic twist to his lips, _No subtlety, no cunning. Just sheer brute force. The epitome of Asgard. Truly, Odin, you've dulled over the centuries._

Before he can explore that thought further - for as long as Loki's been alive, Odin Allfather has _always_ been this way - Loki becomes aware of a pressure in his mouth, on his tongue. An urge to speak._The geas,_ Loki notes, the compulsion rising. He could fight it, he realises - and he might be strong enough to beat it - or he could use it and leave Odin unaware that he's even considered breaking it.

The geas - and the Allfather - demand that he speaks, and speaks truth.

But the very best lies, the ones that are peerless, that are of the utmost use, are the ones that are not lies at all.

And a grain of truth encased a pearl of misdirection nestled within an oyster-shell of omission is matchless.

Clearing a throat rusty from disuse, Loki responds, the gem-like words falling from his lips. "I _intend_ to repair the Bifrost," Papery, hoarse, the words come out scarcely above a whisper, but he has no doubt both Odin and Thor hear them. "I _plan_ to discharge the Odin-laid conditions of my punishment." What he does with the Bifrost _after that_ is an entirely different matter. But Odin hasn't asked, and Loki will not volunteer it.

"And the notations?" Odin presses, clearly still suspicious.

Here it comes. The crowning misdirection. The unvarnished truth. Wearily, head bowed in a perfect facsimile of defeat at the feet of the King of Asgard, Loki can almost taste the triumph.

"The language of Asgard lacks the nuance and complexity needed to understand the inner workings of the Bifrost. This," Loki flicks his fingers towards a desk laden with papers upon which his circular notations run rife. His fingers only; the enchanted manacle encircling his wrist is still too heavy to lift.

"With this, I can think."

Odin leaves after that and, despite Thor's entreaties, Loki remains silent for the rest of the day.

He does not go to dinner, either.

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Comments and constructive criticisms greatly appreciated! Let me know what you think.


	6. Chapter 6

LOST CREATURES VI

Thor tells himself that they've fallen into an uneasy routine, he and Loki: Every morning, Thor stops by Loki's room to invite him to come to arms training, to finally see the Warriors Three and Sif (and, not so incidentally, to enable Thor to discover just how proficient a younger brother - one whom he used to defeat easily in every single sparring match they ever had on Asgard - has become since giving Thor and his Midgardian fellows a serious challenge on Midgard). Every morning the room is empty, the bed cold and fireplace long since burned out, the stack of wood left by the servants each time they set the hearth undiminished by even a single log. Occasionally - at _least_ every four or so days, Thor comforts himself - it actually looks as if the sheets may have been slept in. Perhaps.

Loki himself is never there.

Thor has long since given up attempting to excuse his younger brother's sour-spirited absence from his - their - friends' company, and (after the first day or so, when Sif enquired just what Loki's punishment entailed) none of the four ask after him.

They can all understand why Odin elected to announce neither the return of their wayward second prince, nor his punishments to Asgard at large. He is allowed free movement on Asgard, though chained and silenced. People will doubtless notice their prince's return soon enough, though he's yet to leave the confines of the palace grounds and indeed seems happy to restrict himself to the Bifrost-dedicated workshop for the vast majority of his time.

The thought of the disgraced genius prince of mischief given free reign to create and invent is not a concept that sits well with any of them, though Fandral - to himself - will at least acknowledge that Loki's flair for problem-solving has negotiated, finagled, and sleight-of-handed them out of more tight spots than he can number offhand.

Sif's lips just tighten at any mention of the sable-haired master seidr-worker. Though she battled tradition a millennium-old to follow her calling, to become a warrior of note on her own merits and despite her gender, she has little time for the trickery and delicate machinations she sees as Loki's preference.

The idea that, perhaps, Asgard's second prince fell back onto mischief after being denied his _own_ calling, that of seidr, does not even cross her mind.

After a great deal of careful thought, (and at Odin's command) Thor has chosen _not_ to inform his dear friends and shield-brothers (and sister) of Loki's Jotun heritage. Given his ill-fated attempt at the crown, Loki's reintegration into Asgard was already going to be very difficult even before Odin's punishment; now, with the previously only hinted-at extent of his mastery of both unmanly seidr _and_ un-Asgardian smithery put on display for every denizen of the golden city to see, even Thor knows that his brother will have a particularly hard time of it when the Bifrost is repaired.

He shies away from thinking too hard on what happened the last time Loki's seidr-working was treated persistently with open disdain.

It is typically early afternoon by the time the morning training has been completed and the sweat and soreness of the last sparring match soaked away in the baths. Thor usually eats with his friends, and though the luncheon discussions - and embellishments - of the morning's bouts are spirited, he feels keenly the lack of his younger brother's wit and sardonic humour at the table.

Not that Loki would have leave to speak, even were he present; none of the warriors save Thor himself could even begin to identify themselves as family. In the face of Loki's silence to all of his entreaties, Thor would question it himself - perhaps the geas meant only family related by blood, rather than all the much more important ties that bind the two of them together - save that Loki spoke, that one time, to their father. Uneasily, Thor refuses to consider that his younger brother did so only _after_ Odin, the author of his punishment, ordered him to.

For Loki to note, to acknowledge dryly and freely, that he could not think clearly in the language of Asgard troubles Thor more than he cares to consider. So many things have changed since his brother . . . fell . . . from the Bifrost, and new developments on already-matchless Asgard are rarely an improvement, especially when they come in the form of a slight, seidr-working mischief god well known for . . . unpleasant consequences.

But the speed and success with which he is rebuilding the Bifrost is undeniable, and were it a Dvergar, one of the Volur, or indeed anyone other than his little brother - the second prince of _Asgard_ who _should,_ by rights, be a warrior - Thor would be delighted with the demonstrated progress. But it isn't. It's Loki. And not only is his work astounding, Thor's little brother might even be _enjoying_ it, though it takes him away from battle and warrior training.

The royal Palace of Asgard was built in little more than a month by a particularly talented dwarf. That was merely the structure, though; the finer workings of enchantment took Asgard's many Volur all working in concert much, much longer. It might even have required Odin to lower himself to seidr-working; Thor isn't sure - he's never been interested in that side of things and anyway the chronicles their tutors forced him to read are vague on the issue. Still, while Thor may never have excelled at history, or indeed any book-learning at all, even he knows that the seidr-work behind the Bifrost, created before Asgard even existed by some unknown master inventor, is orders of magnitude beyond anything woven into the Palace.

Besides which, the dwarf who built the palace had been working from a plan, with materials present at the ready. Loki's template has fallen into the abyss; predating Asgard as it did, there are no designs for the Bifrost anywhere in the Palace (and Thor did ask, early in his relocate-Loki phase when he was trying to figure out where his younger brother might be vanishing to.) The materials needed for the Bifrost are every bit as unknown as the nature of the seidr that made the bridge function, and while every child on Asgard knows that the bridge works via forming a link to all nine realms of Yggdrasil, nobody knows just what that means.

Well, no one save perhaps Loki, who both found and walked through hidden paths between the worlds without the bridge's use well before it's destruction. But even in those limited circumstances where he's able to, he isn't talking.

Thor knows his father is just, knows that Odin's latest punishment of Loki is wise and that the fruits of it will be of benefit to Asgard as a whole. But sometimes, as he continues his routine after lunch, as he takes his leave of his friends and collects a plate of food to tempt his silent brother with, Thor cannot help but wonder - just a little - if Odin may have dealt Loki more than he can bear. Further - though it escaped his notice initially - Thor has since uneasily realised that when Odin stated Loki would be further punished should he fail to deliver results quickly, the Allfather never specified exactly how short his brother's timeframe actually stands.

He himself may not have realised straight away just how vulnerable that left his brother to further torment, but he rather doubts Loki didn't grasp the implications of the open-ended threat of more punishment instantly. Sometimes, Thor finds he comforts himself with the thought that this time pressure, perhaps, is why his brother remains so silent towards him; a proper reconciliation would take hours, would necessitate celebration with feasting and toasts, and saddled with such a mammoth task as repairing the Bifrost, Loki has not the time to spare.

And yet - as Thor discovers one fine afternoon after a particularly invigorating sparring match - despite all the obstacles against him, despite the mounting pressure as time slips by, alone in his lab Loki has proved able to put together what appears to be a working facsimile of the Bifrost in slightly under three weeks.

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Notes: aaaaaand things start getting interesting! Drop me a line, leave me a comment - let me know what you think!


	7. Chapter 7

LOST CREATURES VII

In truth, Loki had been less worried about the implications of a limited timeframe than Thor might have expected; Odin's addition of it to his sentence had been curiously open-ended and the associated further punishment vague, which was more telling than perhaps the Allfather realised. _Odin needs the Bifrost, _Loki had long since deduced (when he bothered to spend any time thinking about it at all) between teasing and cajoling a recalcitrant filament back into the web of colour and air he was weaving. _And he needs it functional as quickly as possible - and without any lost time as work pauses while he makes good on an arbitrary threat of physical torment - else why task me with rebuilding it? He knows torturing me gains him little; physical misery was ineffectual in taming me when I was eight, and he will realise it is no more likely to work now that I've a millennia or two more behind me. _Absently, he snapped his fingers, pleased when the delicate machinery he'd spent the morning building chimed obediently in response. _No. It is not an incentive, or at least, it fails as one. It could be his roundabout way of telling me, without overtly asking for my help, that there is more at stake than a cessation of inter-realm trade and Thor's inability to easily visit his little mortal strumpet. _Teeth bared in a small smile of genuine pleasure, Loki ran a gentle hand over the whorls of enchantment impressed in what had been a simple palladium disc. His circular language had indeed proven crucial to his efforts, and both writing in it and seidr-working through it felt more like rediscovering old knowledge than inventing new.

It was strangely comforting, seeing it writhe through the machinery he constructed, an integral and organic part of the whole. Familiar, friendly. _Of course, the more likely explanation is that as Odin gave no timeframe, he will be seen to be within his rights to chain me to torment the minute I finish building the Bifrost, to claim that - however quickly I complete this task - I have taken too long, that I am deserving of further punishment._ The heavy-handed clumsiness of the ploy - if indeed that was was the Allfather's play - was depressing. And, Loki hoped, unlikely. _Odin should be able to manage a _little _more subtlety than that, and I am far more useful to both him and Asgard if I am 'grateful' my punishment is over, keen to be of use, and desperate for 'reintegration'. A reinstatement that will, of course, never happen; not even the most loutish of Asgard's finest warriors will miss noticing that my seidr-work is the most developed and powerful skill I have, that rebuilding the Bifrost requires more than just my usual 'tricks' or 'mischief', the likes of which are unwelcome, but ignorable._

It was, of course, just possible that Odin thought he could use threats to hurry along Loki's work, then grandiosely forgive him and welcome him back into his previous family place in Thor's shadow, where he would _naturally _be grateful to continue cleaning up after the thunder god's gaffes and quietly ensuring things ran smoothly for the next millennia or so (or until his next infraction), in exchange for Thor's dubious protection from the poisonous loathing of his seidr-work - and by extension, himself - all of Asgard would be honor-bound to display. Odin would _probably_ see that as a win-win and _likely _aim for it as an outcome; but Loki wasn't masochistic enough to bet an avoidable century or so of torture on it.

Loki's fail safe was the rebuilt Bifrost itself, though he hadn't intended it that way. Half-alive, and vastly more semi-sentient than the old one had been, his Bifrost was eager to please, crooning to him to tell him of its joyous wonder at existence; speaking with colour and chimes with each new development he made, their respective delights in creating, and in coming into being, a perfect complement for each other. He hadn't realised how deeply he'd poured his soul into his creation, how heavily he'd invested himself, until the day he gently guided the half formed tendrils of anchor along the branches of Yggdrasil to latch onto Midgard.

On that day, twenty days since his inglorious return to Asgard, since the silencing of his silver tongue to all save 'family', since his shackling and sentencing, Loki's Bifrost spun seeking filaments, searching under Loki's care for another end of the bridge, worming through the roots and branches of Yggdrasil to find an endpoint. And that day, when the nascent bridge chimed it's wonder at him, Loki found, despite his silencing, he was able to reply, a whistling trill of encouragement and teaching; _yes, that is the right world, and now the link forms like so, and the cornerstone is thusly._

As a youngster Loki had been intensely lonely, especially in the years when he'd been recalled from the dwarves but was as yet too small to join Thor in warrior training. He'd attempted to ameliorate his isolation by creating his constructs; pouring in hope and fellowship and the untarnished optimism of youth. Those creations had made an odd little family for the isolated prince; attachments closer than any he shared with his absent parents or distracted older brother. So much so that he'd fought Odin for their lives, submitted to having his mouth sewn shut, his eyes poisoned, even as Sleipnir was enslaved as Odin's mount, as Fenrir was locked into unconscious stasis and Jormungr banished to the oceans. Now, much as those before it, Loki's newest creation acknowledged him as dear to it's heart, as family. So when the Bifrost asked, Loki had no hesitation in answering. Because he could, because he wanted to, and because not even Odin's geas could dispute his right to: family, after all, was what you made of it.

He'd never known why it was that he could find ways and paths to other worlds instinctually, why understanding which worlds a given route might service as well as intrinsically how each planet worked just came to him naturally. In fact, it had taken a few arch looks from Thor and his friends to realise that it wasn't something that _everyone_ did, and that cheerfully bypassing Heimdall's iron grip on the Bifrost to duck down those paths for an unsanctioned day's jaunt wasn't something _anyone_ did. Well, anyone other than Loki.

But his insight served him well now; using his mind to map the way, Loki could gently coax his newly formed and half-fashioned Bifrost along the route he'd chosen (a safer and more open one by far than he himself usually chose to walk). While he knew his first destination might cause Odin's thunderous consternation, Midgard hadn't been a particularly premeditated focus; being central within Yggdrasil, it was just the closest, easiest world for a juvenile Bifrost to reach and form its first anchorpoint, and even though the Allfather wasn't a being one wanted to anger without reason, Loki wasn't about to risk a fragile infant Bifrost in a more complex first anchoring just to be . . . politic.

But creating is exhausting, and Loki had been gripped in the feverish clutches of inventiveness for days without sleep, barely eating when finally the first stretch of the bridge was ready to latch onto Midgard. Thus, when the cornerstone was fully formed, and the anchor strengthening, and there was little more to do for a stretch, Loki took up his creation's offer of peace, of rest and safety.

It was like that that Thor found him, one crystalline, golden Asgardian afternoon; curled up amongst the colours and machinery of his Bifrost, lulled into a dreamless sleep by the gentle humming song of the bridge as it wove strand after strand of brightly hued attachment to it's anchorpoint on Midgard.

Thor felt something in his chest both simultaneously tighten and loosen at the sight; Loki looked so young, so vulnerable nestled in amongst the colours of his bridge. And yet his little brother's deep, dreamless sleep spoke volumes of an ease with his surroundings, a sense of _safety_ that had been jarringly absent from Loki's awake face for far longer than he cared to think about. Here, in this forge where he'd been silenced once before - albeit by the finest silver threads stitched through his lips - Loki obviously now felt secure enough to sleep, sheltered by his own creation.

The faint scuffing sound of Frigga's silken slippers on the flagstones behind him was the only warning he got of his parents' arrival. Turning, he would have asked them what they thought, how they knew of Loki's success, but his words died unspoken as he saw his father's face. For the first time Thor could remember, Odin ignored his eldest utterly, staring at his youngest as if - while over the years he might have looked - he'd never truly _seen_ the other before.

When Odin spoke, it was with a sense of wonder Thor had never, in all his centuries, heard colour his father's voice before. "He did it," The Allfather breathed, a whisper of sheer astonishment. "He actually managed to do it."

It might have been a benediction, it might have been an imprecation. Thor couldn't tell.

Either way, it woke the slumbering mischief god instantly.

A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

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	8. Chapter 8

LOST CREATURES VIII

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The surprising thing, Loki thought grimly, was not that Odin had known the Bifrost's first anchor was complete (he'd felt Heimdall's unwavering gaze on him for too many days now to doubt that reports of his progress were being regularly forwarded to the one-eyed monarch) but that the Allfather had come down to the forge to see it for himself.

That was unexpected. He'd surmised that Odin was desperate to have the bridge between worlds restored by any means (no matter how distasteful), but - taking into account the king's unwillingness to provide him with either helpful minions for his task or even the means of asking for equipment and materiel from any save his family - the obvious urgency of that need was greater than he'd allowed for.

Which. . . could be a problem.

Carefully, he sized up the imposing regent standing before him. Odin looked well; there would likely be no need for another Odinsleep anytime soon. Frigga stood firm at his side, as did Thor, implying that the united front of the royal family was intact. That concordance alone should have been enough to deter all but the most insistent threats.

So. Why the urgency?

And could he make it work for him?

Next to Odin, Frigga was staring at him with an expression of equal parts undisguised hope and frank disbelief. Bringing her was a clever ploy on Odin's part, Loki allowed: Her presence was doubtless some attempt to entice him to 'behave', to work for 'acceptance' back into the family. It paired neatly with her absence from the great hall during his sentencing. _I believe the Midgardians refer to it as 'good cop, bad cop'; an enticement and a punishment both on offer. _Schooling his face into impassivity, he focused on Odin instead of Frigga, ignoring her slight moue at his inattentiveness; while both of them had had a hand in raising him, and in ordering his punishments over the years, the Allfather was by far the more dangerous of the two, particularly with the unpredictability displayed by this latest move.

In a subtle whistling corner of his mind, the Bifrost picked up on his carefully hidden caution. Trilling an offer of protection, it demanded to know which of the three bipods threatened him? Or did they all pose a danger to him? That was not to be borne! It would battle the one-eyed one with colour and space and anchorpoints! Immature though it was, the Bifrost readied itself for a desperate defense of it's creator.

It was only with the most rigorous of self discipline that Loki avoided stiffening with terror at the direction his creation's sentiments were wending. This! This was loyalty to Loki first and Odin a distant second, if ever! This was independence from Asgard! This was glorious and soul-affirming and the very same trait that had cost the mischief god his creations when he was eight. Loki's blood ran cold at the idea of losing another treasured opus.

Sparing a thread of thought to comfort his creation, to beg it's indulgence and caution and to please _please_ hide it's emotions and quell it's intent, Loki slipped his focus back to the Allfather.

Grumbling, the Bifrost settled, though it did not let him go. Though the whole exchange had taken only seconds, Loki doubted that anyone other than himself had seen more than a stray flash of ruddy pigment through the weft of the bridge. At least, he hoped so.

But if he wanted to keep it that way, there was work to be done.

Struggling out of the cocoon of colour and warm affection his Bifrost had nested him in, Loki flowed briefly to his feet - barely pausing - before folding to his knees in a position of such abject respect it was a hairsbreadth from mockery. Frigga may or may not know that the Allfather had had no compunction about forcing him into the subservient pose before. Depending on why she was here, his stance, which she would consider that of a criminal (or worse, a _commoner_), and the speed with which he assumed it might serve to inform her. Either this would cause her to cease any protestations of familiarity before they could be made, or the implication that Odin had treated him as other than a prince when out of her presence might drive a wedge between at least part of that oh-so-prettily united front.

Either way, Loki allowed behind his carefully blanked expression, it would be a winning situation.

"I see you are successful, Loki _Odinson_," Odin boomed, the emphasis on the second name - the verbal leash - not lost on either of them. What's in a name? Apparently, quite a lot. Behind his carefully expressionless facade, Loki hid a smirk; The Allfather wanted him emotionally bound to Asgard and it's king? To ensure he was compliant? _Useful?_

That. . . could be a good position to be in. Not a safe one, not by any stretch of the imagination, but one with which Loki could work. _I **could** play at being his 'son', if I had to, though both of us would know it for the farce it is._ He'd done it before, after all.

"I give you leave to speak," Odin gestured at him as carelessly as he would any servant or liegeman, shifting his attention to the nascent Bifrost instead. Despite himself, Loki's lips thinned. The King of Asgard's avaricious gaze had fallen on another of Loki's creations before, and Sleipnir now resided in a stable, bound to the Allfather's service. The mischief god found that the idea of another creation held in such thrall . . . did not sit well with him. At all. No matter what might have been intended when his planning and construction of that work had begun.

His silence was a calculated risk, but one he was willing to take if it kept the elder god from looking too closely at the new Bifrost.

It worked; his brows drawing together in stormy irritation, Odin's attention swung back to the slender shadow kneeling - silent - in front of him. "Once more," He growled, a slow thunder underlying his words, "a _second time _you would decline _your father's_ invitation to words?" Loki's mouth remained closed.

"Then you will answer_ your king's_ demand for a response!" Odin had barely finished speaking when the heavy metal choker around Loki's neck started to burn chilly against his throat, attempting to force out the words.

"Odin, no!" It was Frigga who spoke, her tone clearly begging for clemency for the dark haired, disgraced prince in front of her. "This shames us all!"

"Mother is right! Father, please!"

"He will _speak_!" The Allfather blustered, and it was all Loki to do to tamp down his smirk. _A few weeks ago, Odin Allfather, you deliberately gagged me to silence any utterance save that which you found expedient. Not so convenient now, is it?_ Head carefully bent, Loki spared himself a second to revel in a malicious sense of triumph. The ice-burns searing into his neck from the collar would heal, and this victory? successfully manipulating the Allfather's attention away from Loki's latest creation? Priceless.

Thor stared in desperation. Whatever his birthright, Loki shared with Odin a characteristic stubborness, and neither were now willing to yield. This was getting well out of hand, the chance of his brother sustaining actual damage increasing with each recalcitrant moment of resistance, of determined, silent revolt.

"Loki - brother - please! _Please_ don't do this!" Thor begged, falling to his own knees as he faced his floor-bound brother. "Please, answer Father's questions!" If diplomacy, speech-making, food-bringing didn't work, perhaps - just maybe - a heartfelt plea might.

Ignoring the burn, Loki rolled his eyes at that. _He hasn't asked any questions, Thor. _But despite the searing pain in his throat, Loki found it possible - and perhaps even easier than before - to decline to answer Odin. Either the geas was weakening, or Loki was growing stronger.

At that moment, Odin appeared to also realise he'd made no query and rapidly rectified the situation. "Your Bifrost," He nodded at the roiling mass of colour. "Does it work?"

"It should." Loki whispered hoarsely, sounding for all the world like a beaten son looking for absolution. _Might as well play this farce out._ "However, I've set the first anchor point only. It appears to have taken, and - should it work properly - that provides access to one world."

"Just one? One world only?" Thor looked put out at that. "Which world is it then, Loki? If you can merely get us one link it should not be to Jotunheim."

Loki forced down his ire at Thor's tactlessness with the ease of long practice. _I may have "_merely_" created something that could allow easy passage to one world, Prince of Asgard, but that's a damn sight more than your entire population has managed to build on it's own!_ Stifling a sigh, Loki kept his gaze locked on the floor: Thor would never appreciate his seidr, would always - no matter what evidence to the contrary was presented to him - treat it as a faintly shameful, unmanly trick. But in the end, Loki allowed, at least the thunder god didn't even matter; it was Odin, not Thor, who would be the architect of his ongoing punishment.

But he'd been silent for too long, and once again the one-eyed king of Asgard's ire was rising.

"Answer your Crown Prince's question, Loki Odinson! Which world does this allow us passage to?"

Quietly, calmly, and with a serenity he did not feel, Loki set his shoulders in anticipation of the explosion sure to follow his pronouncement.

"To Midgard, King Odin. The first anchor point is on Midgard."

_Comments and constructive criticism greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!_


	9. Chapter 9

LOST CREATURES CHAPTER IX

"To Midgard, King Odin. The first anchor point is on Midgard."

"I see," Odin grated, eyes narrowed suspiciously. "And why is that?"

"It is close enough and easy enough to anchor to. It is familiar to me and there is little there that would harm a new-formed Bifrost." All truths, all valid points, all dancing carefully around the actual _issue_ of Loki's decision to put his creation's well-being first over his own. _ I knew you would be displeased, Allfather, but any other route would have increased the risk to my Bifrost, and that is _not_ acceptable._

"But you could have linked it to another world?" Odin growled ominously.

"Yes." Loki affirmed, the blankness of his voice giving nothing - yet everything - away.

"And can you change this 'anchor point'? Bind us instead to, say, Svartelheim?"

"This anchor point cannot be changed," Loki started, as aware of Odin's increasing ire as he was of the ever more chilly weight of the manacles on his neck and hands. "However," he started, before being abruptly choked off as the collar around his neck tightened, smashed him down to the floor even as it sent a blisteringly icy pain spearing through him. Frigga's strangled gasp told him all he needed to know: He'd counted on Odin's brutality, and it was doing a fine job of serving him; Frigga may have expected conflict between her husband and the disgraced second prince, but she obviously hadn't counted on Odin's propensity for violence to rear this quickly.

"Odin, please! Enough!" She cried, wringing her hands but making no move towards either her husband or the fragile-looking figure splayed on the floor in front of them. _Good cop, bad cop _Loki allowed, giving himself a moment to be impressed at the skill with which she played her role. Even with the freezing pain lancing through him from the collar and manacles, he had to grant her that.

Loki's next whispered words were lost in Thor's roar as the thunder god raised a hand to summon Mjolnir, though whether to pummel his erstwhile brother or merely to punctuate a point, Loki could not say. _For all that he's recently fetched food in a clumsy attempt to make amends, he's never had a problem assisting with my previous punishments,_ the mischief god noted grimly, _so it's past time to wrap this up before he decides that I would look well with a pulped head. _ Memory flashed, of Thor's youthful arms - already powerfully built and daily becoming more so - as the then-teen held his eight-year-old sibling tight in as close a bear-hug as he'd ever offered the youngster, while the silver threads stitched agony through Loki's mouth. Of Thor forcing him still while he fought as his lips were threaded shut, whispering in his ear with each and every stitch, "Father is right: You should have known your place, Loki! None of this would have happened if you'd just been a proper prince and stopped playing with your stupid seidr!"

Loki shied away from the recollection of that early punishment.

"Odin! Husband, you have ordered him to speak, now let him finish his sentence!" Frigga demanded, and once again Loki had to hand it to her; the consummate skill with which she played his saviour while enabling Odin to extract the information he desired was truly elegant. Unquestionably, she was a queen fit for her king, a perfect foil.

As the pain - and the tightness of his collar - eased off, Loki opened his mouth. Odin and Frigga had displayed such lovely teamwork, it was well past time to give them their due.

And if that meant the half-truths he planned to feed them were more palatable to the pair if spiced with his pain, well then, that was a small price to pay for his creation's safety.

"I can add as many more anchor points as needed, to whatever worlds you desire, once this one is tested and solid." Loki gasped, throat feeling like gargled glass shards. _Though whether or not I _will_ is another matter entirely. _

"And how will you test it?" Odin snarled, suspicious and only slightly mollified by the sight of his prodigal second prince beaten on the floor.

"Why, someone needs to travel through it, of course," Loki grinned darkly, a tinge of madness lighting his eyes as he raised them to meet the Allfather's; he was battered but uncowed, the torture unpleasant but largely ineffectual, and it would not do to have the king think otherwise. _Inflicting pain is a waste of time, Allfather, and it is well past the point where you should know it._ The urgency with which Odin needed the Bifrost, as demonstrated by the behaviour the king was displaying, played right into Loki's hands. _Let me show you that forcing me costs you time, and gains you nothing more than a dose of lunacy. A little madness is called for. _Loki loosened the control he held over himself, if only slightly.

"Will you send your son?" He laughed, insanity crackling rich and heavy through the sound. "I'm sure Prince Thor would _love_ to see his little mortal strumpet again, and all his little warrior friends. Possibly bask a little in the human's hero worship for his efforts on their behalf." Pursing his lips, Loki pretended to think.

"Of course, the only person who can tell if this Bifrost is likely to do what it is supposed to is _me_. Perhaps the crown prince is too valuable to risk on an untried device built by an angry criminal, yes?" A flash of teeth flickered through a grin as the mischief god shrugged.

"How about sending a diplomat, then? Of course, seeing as negotiating is _unmanly, _Asgard has had no capable envoys since _me_." Testing the weight of his bonds, Loki hauled himself to his knees, a perfect facsimile of respect.

"So instead a warrior, the most valued role in all of Asgard, would doubtless suffice. One who has never met - let alone aided - the humans but can nonetheless explain to them why you felt it necessary to take away both their tesseract and their prisoner while establishing a linking bridge that can only be opened from Asgard and at Asgard's convenience. I'm sure such a one would get a _warm_ welcome. Assuming, of course, that they actually made it to Midgard without being spattered inside out across the branches of Yggdrasil." Loki laughed delightedly, manic and free. "It is, after all, a test run."

"Your grasp of politics and the intricacies of diplomacy has not faded, my Loki, my son," Frigga said unexpectedly, a hint of sadness colouring her words. "I would that you were brave enough - strong enough of spirit - to stand by your brother when he is king, and offer him your council as your father and I had always planned. For he will greatly need it." Turning, she moved to leave. "Whether that will ever happen is uncertain, but one thing to me is clear."

She paused in the doorway, casting a single look back at her shocked-looking eldest son and the calculating stare of the one she considered her youngest, before catching and holding the eye of her husband. "Loki, you are _wasted_ as a prisoner."

Once again, comments and criticisms greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think.


	10. Chapter 10

LOST CREATURES X

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When he had summoned Mjolnir to his hand, crouching next to a struggling brother on the floor of a half-abandoned forge, the sole thing on Thor's mind had been to make it _stop_. To cease the reckless, useless torment of his brother or said sibling's recalcitrant rebellion, either one. Loki was fickle, fey and wild as they came, and falling through the empty space between worlds had only made that more apparent. To bind him was one thing; shackling madness before it could spread - Thor had convinced himself - was reasonable. But this? this torment for the sake of it? This would achieve nothing!

Apparently, his mother had agreed; her verbal intervention both saving face for her younger son and her husband, and preventing her eldest from committing the crime of raising his hammer - his _weapon_ - against the direct, expressed will of his father. It seemed, when he considered it in retrospect, that once more he owed his mother his heartfelt thanks: The verbal exchange Thor had shared with his father all those months ago, the one that had resulted in his banishment, would have been nothing compared to _that_, and Thor uneasily pushed aside the thought of what the commensurate punishment would have been.

When he looked back on it, the one thing that struck Thor was how surreal the entire episode had been. His own near-gaffe, elegantly turned aside by Frigga's deft handling of the situation, contrasted with the queen's parting shot. And it _was_ a parting shot; though physically frailer, Frigga had ever been her husband's match when it came to determination and intelligence; any less, and she could not have been his foil, his queen, his light. Thor knew that with the same certainty (a certainty settled in his bones) that he knew that, while he were worthy, Mjolnir would ever rest in his hands. So Frigga's final words, her transparent attempt to gently chide Loki back into the role he had always been groomed for - that of Thor's right hand man - had seemed a clumsy turn of phrase for his ever-eloquent mother, for all her oft-expressed wish that he and Loki would take up the role of king and advisor when she and Odin stepped down.

But while appealing to Loki's bravery seemed a lost cause (after all, any one who persistently chose to use seidr for his weapon of choice was by definition a coward. All of Asgard knew _that, _and Loki had certainly had it pointed out to him on more than one occasion.) Thor found he couldn't dispute his mother's assessment on one particular point.

Loki _was_ wasted as a prisoner. He was also, in Thor's duly considered opinion, utterly squandered as an artificer, building toys and tools for Asgard, indulging his habit for seidr. He was utterly misused, no matter how pretty or successful the fruits of his labour were: Surely - Thor had convinced himself - the Volur that Asgard had seen assigned to the Bifrost before Loki's return could have laboured a little while longer and eventually achieved the same result, and all without tainting his little brother once more with the taste for high seidr, for world-threatening creativity.

For once the dark-haired maverick rediscovered his predilection for it, who knew where his skill for creation would lead? nowhere good for Asgard, Thor was certain. Nowhere where Asgard could stand perfect, unchanged. _Unchallenged_ with change.

In private moments - and only to himself - Thor had long since resigned himself to the knowledge that Loki's cunning, his canny grasp of strategy, and his relentless _imagination (_even - _especially_ - when it came to tactics) far outstripped Thor's own. It was part of why, when the Man of Iron had invited the Captain to devise and command the Avengers' strategy during the attack on New York, Thor had acceded with nary a murmur of dissent despite his superior status as both prince and god, and his - literally - aeons of experience leading small, stalwart groups against overwhelming odds.

Far too many times that small group had featured Loki, and rather more often than Thor was comfortable considering, Loki had been the strategist who had wrangled victory or escape for himself, Thor and Thor's steadfast warriors three, often in the face of near-certain defeat. Faced with the novel and unwelcome concept of battling _against_ this talent while fighting on Midgard, the thunder god had deferred to the star-spangled captain, hoping that some flash of brilliance on the masked superhero's part might just be enough to tip the scales against his brother, to win the battle.

Though it had in the end been the Man of Iron who had done that, Thor could not help but uneasily note that Loki's entire attempt on Midgard had felt clumsily half-hearted. Certainly, it had lacked anything resembling his usual finesse and skill.

Foreign though they were, the Chitauri force had been unquestionably military. An _army?_ Loki had used an _army? _A living example of brute force and unsubtle tactics, notions of which he so utterly disdained? And not just used them as a diversion; the mischief god had been overtly, obviously, smack bang in the middle of the fighting force. Glorying in the type of combat that usually brought a sneering curl to his lip.

It was no more comforting a thought now than it had been when he'd initially considered it during the very first dinner with his parents back on Asgard, after Loki had fled the throne room for his lab, beginning his task with alacrity and rather more determined doggedness, and indeed enthusiasm, than Thor would have liked.

Still, his mother was correct; Loki's usual cunning in battle (though spectacular only by it's absence in the most recent conflict) would be an invaluable boon to Thor on the throne. Likewise his skill with diplomacy - manipulation - was indisputable, and could be made serve to quietly strengthen both Asgard and Thor's position once he was king, and all without the thunder god having to lower himself to un-warriorlike political delicacy. Thor himself lacked the cunning, the gift of wordiness, that both Loki and - to a lesser extent - Odin excelled at. While Odin's skill was enough to ensure his secure, prosperous rule, Thor lacked even that much verbal adroitness. Frigga was right; Thor needed his brother, and the thunder god was more than certain that Odin knew that.

It made Odin's decision to punish Loki by commanding him to take up his seidr and _create _somewhat inexplicable to the young crown prince. The only reason he could see were if there were some sort of overriding need for the Bifrost to be repaired quickly. But there wasn't, was there? He, Thor, would surely know. His father, king on high, would have told him.

Wouldn't he?

The summons to his parents' chambers came almost as a relief. The sight of his father - old, worn, and slump-shouldered - did not.

"Father?" He asked, uncharacteristically hesitant in the face of his sire's unmasked fatigue. He was used to the elder god being stalwart, assured, and indomitable. The weakness hinted at in the lines of the Allfather's mouth, the tension of his grip on the windowsill at which he stood, served only to make Thor's skin crawl. _It's too soon for an Odinsleep, I'm sure of it._ Uneasily, Thor thought of the demands placed on his father since the last one: his own trip to Midgard to stop Loki, powered by Odin alone due to the Bifrost's destruction. Then the enchantment of the Dvergar bonds and gag, both to silence the mischief god initially, and then once more for their later transmutation into the tools of Loki's sentence. With a start, Thor realised just how much seidr - how much _strength_ - that must have sapped from the Allfather.

It would have been even more of a demand than when Odin had freed Sleipnir from the Palace stables to ride across the Bifrost to Jotunheim and rescue his sons, to use his strength to enact Thor's banishment and Mjolnir's sealing. . . back when the world went mad and took Loki with it.

Odin had needed to enter the Odinsleep shortly after that, forced into it before he could even repair the damage done to Loki's psyche by the disastrous trip to Jotunheim, by the discoveries the mischief god had made there.

And Odin was nothing like Loki: Where Loki seemed undiminished, or even invigorated, by his seidr-work, Odin grew fatigued. Where Loki seemed to grow stronger with each spell he cast, each creation he wove out of his hope and his mind and his seidr, Odin was lessened. Where Loki's seidr-skills were as much a part of him as his arm or leg or heart, swift to his hand when he needed, Odin's were carefully rare, grafted on, and used only deliberately aforethought and at great personal cost.

The realisation made Thor's blood run cold. _I'm not ready for him to need another Odinsleep! I've so much to learn still, and I cannot - cannot bear - to handle the remainder of Loki's punishment!_

"My son," creaky. Tired and _old_, Odin's voice was still powerful. Thor found himself straightening unconsciously.

"Father," going with his instinct, Thor knelt in a position of fealty, and rather than flinging his arms around the older man, he amended his statement. "My Liege."

Odin - Asgard - needed a crown prince right now. Not a son. Thor could do no less than rise to the occasion.

"I have need of you. _Asgard_ has need of you." Straightening, the heavy burden of rule settled once more on his shoulders, Odin turned to his son, gestured for him to stand. "Though maddened - willfully so, it seems sometimes - Loki is no less intelligent for it."

"Father?"

"He is quite correct, in as far as that goes; the Bifrost must be tested. Because it _must_ be functional."

"But why?! If Loki is a madman, he is merely one with a seidr-spawned mess of colour that may or may not allow living creatures to travel it to reach Midgard! Why then this urgency? Why test this _thing_ he's made at all, if it may simply serve to leave it's passengers 'spattered inside out across the branches of Yggdrasil'? Why not simply get the Volur who were working on-"

"Because they _failed_!" Short, sharp, and without any increase in volume, Odin's words nonetheless cut his son's tirade dead in it's tracks.

"Because there were _twenty_ of them, and they had _years_, and at the end of it they were no closer to success than when they started! And one man, _my second son_, managed to do what they could not, and he did it alone and in less than a month as a _punishment_!" Turning, the aging king walked to the balcony, looking out over the halcyon afternoon.

"Asgard must have this link to the other realms Yggdrasil; without it, we are merely a bough with no connection to the trunk of the tree." Pausing, he faced his son, piercing grey eye boring into Thor's blues. "And no branch survives long without the support of the bole."

NOTES:

Aaaaaand the plot thickens (congeals?) C&C greatly appreciated: Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!


	11. Chapter 11

LOST CREATURES XI

Odin's quiet statement shook Thor to the marrow of his bones.

Asgard? _Asgard_ _the entire world_ was at risk? Little wonder, then, that Odin had cast aside without a second thought his years of effort spent restraining Loki. Even less surprising that the old regent had set him to the task of sheer, inventive, world-changing creation.

Thor hadn't seen it, hadn't felt even the slightest hint of danger, nor even an inkling of the fraying of the slender thread that held his homeworld whole, that knotted the branches of the world tree, Yggdrasil. Clearly, his father had. And just as clearly, Thor had yet much to learn from the venerable old king. Absently, he wondered if Loki had known.

It seemed likely; the slender, dark-haired mischief-maker was ever more attuned to the shifts and sighs of the world around him than most. Something like this was unlikely to escape his notice, crazed as he may be.

That might - _might_ - put a different complexion on his brother's single-minded pursuit of and focus on his goal of achieving a functional Bifrost. Quietly, subtly, Thor allowed himself a moment to bask in the unfettered hope rising in his chest. Perhaps Loki wasn't completely lost to the seductive lure of seidr, spiced with lonely insanity and ferocious creativity. Perhaps his brother's redemption would be less arduous than Thor had allowed for. Now that the bridge was done, if he could just remind the brunet of the joy of battling with weapons rather than seidr, of the thrill of meeting an opponent face-on without tricks or magics, of the comradeship of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with his brothers-in-arms, then perhaps he could evoke in Loki enough of the warrior's pride of Asgard to return him to the fold. Surely that, then, would also restore to his troubled younger brother a measure of sanity, of pride - indeed, a sense of something _worth_ being proud of. Not this shameful, reckless, unmanly seidr. If he could just -

Odin's words, quiet though they were, dragged Thor's attention back to the present with their gravity.

"If this anchor holds, if the abomination of creativity that Loki has spawned works, then the gash that rends Asgard from Yggdrasil can be patched. Asgard will flourish once more. The longer we stand cleaved from Yggdrasil, the worse the tear; the greater the distance and difficulty the breach is to repair, and the higher the chance of something from Between The Worlds entering through it. Time is of the essence."

"Then, Father, there is no choice."

"No, my son. I'm afraid there is not. Loki's Bifrost must be tested, and for all our sakes, I hope it be found worthy."

"Then I shall go! I shall take Mjollnir and ride the colours of the Bifrost to Midgard. I have friends and shield-brothers there; I will make a good showing of it no matter where on Midgard the bridge sets me down!"

"No, my son. Not you."

"But why?! I am known to the Midgardians, a logical choice to-"

"Because Loki - unhinged though he may be - is correct in his insight: You are Asgard's crown prince and_ you stand as my sole heir_. You are not expendable, should this Bifrost prove fallible."

Thor felt his blood run cold at his father's pronouncement. Inside, always, the thunder god had held to the hope of his prodigal brother's return to the fold, his restoration to the family. But now? With Odin's decision - private and unpublicised though it may be - to remove Loki from the line of succession? Here, then, was Odin all but acknowledging that Thor's longed-for proper family reunion would never happen, that things would never be as they were. Thor's perfect, unchanging Asgard - already battered by the events surrounding his banishment - changed that little bit more with the Alfather's pronouncement. Became just that little bit more flawed. Quietly, Thor mourned the loss of the idealised, halcyon Asgard of his childhood, now tarnished by yet more change.

Though it had always been true that Loki would only rule were Thor incapacitated, Thor found that the sharp stab of regret bit into him more strongly than he cared to think about. Always, they had been princes together. Thor's coronation as crown prince (and interim regent for the periods during the Allfather's Odinsleeps) had been a formality - at least, that disastrous first time - and he'd never dreamed he might have to rule without his brother by his side.

_But no longer being in the line of succession does not mean he cannot be my advisor! And Mother has all but stated her intent that he do so!_ Desperately, grimly, Thor held onto the tattered, tarnished hope that the altercation in the forge had left him. Just as determinedly, he avoided thinking of the last major confrontation with Loki that very forge had hosted. How with his own arms and his own sense of the _rightness_ of the Asgardian ways he'd held down his younger brother, stilled him for the punishment that had followed.

It hadn't been pleasant, watching - helping - as Loki's mouth was stitched shut, as he was bound and interred for his punishment. Not pleasant, but just. No matter what Loki claimed, no mere eight year old could have single-handedly figured out those spells, have created such threats to the integrity of Asgard's unchanging perfection. Uneasily, Thor recalled Loki's words on Midgard, the last he'd freely spoken before Odin's gag had silenced him. A gag applied by Thor. _"Have not my word for it then, since you will never take it. Heimdall sees all: Go, ask him what he saw that day. Then, if you're still unsure, inquire of the Guardian of the Vault if I ever went there alone as a child. Even when they both answer in the negative, you won't believe me. You never do."_ And Loki had been right: Thor _hadn't_ believed his brother. Still couldn't, really.

Except that now Thor was faced with what appeared to be a functional Bifrost built unassisted by a starving, deranged mischief god in under a month using a discarded Dvergar forge and his own bloody-minded determination. In light of that, Thor found himself re-examining his brother's challenge, and his own convictions regarding Loki's deceit. Clearly, if he could build a Bifrost, he could have done exactly as he claimed; created - rather than learned - the seidr that animated his constructs.

But could he have done so at age eight? Thor's own martial prowess had begun to manifest around that time, true, but even so he acknowledged that it had been a half-formed strength with only ragged skill attached, requiring the constant attention of his sword masters and fencing tutors to hone it further. The idea that Loki could have taken his own special talents to greater heights even without the assistance of anything more than his own observational skills was unsettling at best.

Uneasily, Thor realized that it had been after Loki was released, after his lips were unstitched and he had eventually started using his silvery voice again that the shy, quiet little brother Thor grew up with had developed into the lie-smith and mischief-maker extraordinaire of Asgard. Barring that first lie - if lie it were - when he denied stealing knowledge from the scrolls in the vault, Thor could not recall that Loki had ever been a particularly deceitful child. Had the disbelief and accusation that had met his creativity at the time been the reason for his evolution? Had the punishment then wrought the disaster now?

Perhaps that was why Odin had refrained from simple physical torment for his wayward younger son; manifestly, it didn't work on Loki. Once again, Thor found his respect for his father rising. Truly, the elder god was wise.

"No, my son," Odin was musing, his gaze directed out the window across the glittering planes and angles of the palace of Asgard, "_You_ won't test the Bifrost by riding it."

"Father?" Surely, Thor thought - hoped - _surely_ his father did not mean to relegate him simply to an observational role.

"As you know, I use my strength in seidr sparingly. It is a difficult, unwieldy, dishonest skill for a man to use." Odin started, apparently choosing to use the discussion as a teaching point and seemingly unaware of the agony of suspense Thor rested in. "But that is not to say I have no competence with it."

"You are a great king. I have learned a good ruler needs both a certain aptitude for many things and the ruthlessness to use any skills that come to hand for the defense of his realm. Though I freely admit I dislike the cost to you which comes with seidr-use, your capability has seen this realm through many trials."

"Fair words, my son. One might almost think you'd taken lessons in eloquence from your brother," Odin and Thor shared a smile at that; a faint quirking of the lips in Odin's case competing with Thor's bare-toothed grin. "But while the Odinsleep is the price I pay for using seidr, Loki incurs no such toll. I do not know how he has escaped the cost; perhaps it is because his seidr is born to him, not learned by him as mine was. Perhaps it is because he opens himself to it fully. Mayhap it is as simple as the _difference_ to us he carries in his blood." Shrugging, the old king blinked his one eye, his gaze flickering towards his blond heir, standing by his side in rapt attention.

"Be that as it may, I have strength enough for two acts without precipitating my next Odinsleep prematurely. Of this I am certain." Facing Thor squarely, Odin continued with a barely-perceptible pause. "One is to notify the representatives of each of our allied realms that we no longer stand in isolation. That we remain a force to be reckoned with. The other, my son . . ."

"Father?"

"The other is to send you once more to Midgard on my own strength. To be there to meet the Bifrost when it activates and sends through our test emissary."

The frisson of joy that lanced through Thor when he heard of his father's plan to send him to Midgard (to Jane Foster, his treacherous subconscious supplied) was tempered by the realisation that the need for Thor to make such a trip - from Odin's point of view - would be minimal.

"Meet the test subject on the other side? Father, why-?"

"Because our trial 'volunteer' may prove recalcitrant about returning, and I have every intention of having him do so."

"Father?"

"Loki, Thor. I intend to send Loki through his own creation. Should he survive the trip - and I imagine he will take steps to ensure he does not get 'smeared inside out across the branches of Yggdrasil' - he may not wish to return." Odin fixed a baleful glare on his eldest. "You will bring him back, Thor, in whatever condition he may be in. I will not have an inventor of his calibre in any hands save my own."

Bitter, horrified resignation at the thought of battling - of _forcing_ - his brother once more made Thor's gorge rise, though none of that showed on his carefully schooled features as he bowed his head to not his father, but his king.

"As you wish, my liege."


	12. Chapter 12

LOST CREATURES XII

For all his acknowledgement of both his father's superior wisdom and his father's stated concerns about Loki's compliance with the stipulated conditions of the Bifrost tests, Thor freely acknowledged that he could not fathom being unwilling to return to Asgard. For all it's attractions, Midgard was still an imperfect, rapidly-changing world, where the humans (who had taught him much about fitness to rule and rightness, it was true) eerily blurred gender roles in a most un-Asgardian fashion; the Man of Iron, for instance, made no secret of being the smith responsible for creating his own armour (so powerful, so advanced, it was as if this 'clean energy' was seidr flowing through it's wires). Despite that, he fought hard and well to ensure no taint of argr, of unmanliness, could be attached to him. But he was Midgardian, not Aesir; building was _right_ for him, as much as for the Dvergar. That the Man of Iron had forged an empire of wealth on the basis of his smithery ability, his creativity, (while utterly unthinkable by the standards of Asgard) did not negate the fact that he'd done it - and was lauded for it - on Midgard.

But perhaps that was what it meant to be human. Thor's heart ached for his brother; while Loki had set out to place himself above them, had he not done so it was painfully clear that in that mortal realm, he might have found a world that would have welcomed his abilities and rewarded them with the adulation he apparently craved. A pleasant place to pass a brief sojourn now and then, to get his cursed creativity out of his system, before returning to Asgard to behave as a prince ought to. Perhaps, if that had been the case, Thor could have understood Odin's dire remonstrations to ensure his brother's prompt return; ceding responsibility had it's own seductive allure.

Now, of course, Midgard would never provide that sanctuary.

Not that that was necessarily a bad thing; shamed or not, Loki was a prince of Asgard. Destined to stand behind his brother and serve his sibling's throne in one manner or another. It was only right, only true and good and proper that he do so. Odin could easily raise his prodigal second son to that position again after the Bifrost test, were it successful. Or, of course, he could simply make it part of Loki's penance, though Thor hoped his little brother would not see it that way. Perhaps that was where Frigga's gentle hand could be seen; deftly guiding the stated punishment into a more productive channel; if Loki realised he were forgiven, surely _surely _he would embrace his role as royal counsellor with grateful enthusiasm, surely he would work towards being deemed worthy.

Uneasily, Thor remembered Odin's words on the Bifrost, when the life - and heart - of his second son had seemingly hung in the balance. No understanding of what the brunet had been desperate to achieve, no value, no hope, no forgiveness. . . _No, Loki._

His brother's devastated face as he let go, tattered shreds of innocence streaming off it like the salty tears leaking unheeded from his eyes, had haunted Thor's dreams for months. He wondered if Loki had ever cried since. He wondered if Loki had ever stopped questioning his own merit. He_ knew_ Odin had never expressed any sentiment valuing his second son, had never deemed him worthy.

He wondered if Loki would now accept if Odin offered it. Oh, how he hoped so. But. . . But now, there was that niggling seed of doubt, where before there was certainty. Of _course_ Loki wanted to be worthy in their father's eyes. Look at the lengths he'd gone to achieve that! Surely that hadn't changed, had it?

As it was, Odin's choice of the private royal gardens as location for this discussion was probably wise, and certainly calculated. Having this meeting in the throne room would set the wrong tone, and doing it in the forge where Loki now tended to lair? equally as undesirable. But here? In the garden where Loki had played as a child, where he and Thor had sat with their mother as she read stories to them, where many happy picnics had been taken? The only venue in the palace where Loki had never, in the past or present, been punished? This was as close to neutral ground as Asgard would offer.

Loki, when he appeared - flanked by the two guards who had conveyed Odin's summons - did not appear to take it as such. Perhaps it was that the guards stood behind him as they would a prisoner, perhaps it was that they were armed, perhaps it was that _guards _had delivered the message (and then escorted him), rather than a palace servant or Thor himself, but Loki carried himself tall and straight, his proud grace undiminished by the tension threading through his thin frame as sharp, darting green eyes took in Odin's seat on one of the benches and Thor's easy ready-stance next to him. Subtle cues, true, but Thor knew his brother - or had done so - and could easily enough see the signs.

This was not Loki coming to parlay on neutral ground. This was Loki fully expecting some torment, and cautiously working out how bad it was likely to be, how he could talk his way out of it, or if he even could be bothered to try.

The sight shook Thor to the core. Did his little brother really expect only punishment when he saw his family? Did he really anticipate only torment each time he laid eyes on his parents and brother? Loki was _loved_! His family cherished him! That he now viewed them with well-hidden dread - how had that happened?! Why?! Odin was ever just and righteous, Frigga as well - any discipline they dispensed was always well deserved, and not even Loki could argue that he had not warranted penance for his crimes this time.

But there it was. That subtle tension thrumming through his brother, the same that Thor had seen a hundred times on their adventures and quests; the taut quicksilver that threaded through the brunet when he expected an attack but was unsure from whom, exactly, it would come. Then Loki pulled a flanking move; before being ordered - or forced - he folded to his knees. A perfect picture of a prisoner before a judge. Beautifully executed, a single hairsbreadth shy of being sarcastic, and utterly unanticipated. Conceding ground before it was demanded? Utterly unexpected. _What are you up to, Loki?_

Battles can be fought with words, and Loki was long since past master of that form of combat. Fighting with silence? Well, it seemed that the mischief god was proving adept at that, too.

But Odin was having none of it.

"Loki," He acknowledged, making no move towards the kneeling figure, though he dismissed the guards with a wave of his hand. Silently, they took up watchful positions at the entry to the garden, just out of earshot. "I have reached a decision about your Bifrost."

In front of him, the mischief god knelt silent, eyes downcast, but sheer challenge screamed through the very line of his shoulders. Beside his father, Thor stirred uneasily; this could go so very wrong, and Frigga was not here to cool the friction between estranged father and son.

"It will be tested. It will be travelled upon." Odin gestured grandly. "You will be its first test subject." In front of him, Loki might as well have been carved of stone. But Thor ignored his younger brother's uncharacteristic silence; Odin had not, after all, given him leave to speak.

"You will travel to Midgard, under the guard of Hogunn of the warriors three. Should you make any move that would threaten the Midgardians, Hogunn has orders to stop you."

In front of him, Loki's face might as well have been carved of stone, though Thor thought he caught the faintest flicker of an eyebrow. He had to agree; sending a _prince_ who had cheerfully rampaged through a city with only a single guard - no matter how proficient with weaponry that guard was - seemed either insulting or woefully short-sighted. Of course, sending more than one guard on what could be a messy, fatal failure of an experiment was like unto spending the lives of his subjects like cheap coin; distasteful to the Allfather.

"He will also have the means of carrying out those orders; your bonds will be modified before you depart to limit both your seidr and your speech. Once you have succeeded, you will return immediately. I would not presume upon the Midgardians' goodwill by leaving a criminal serving his sentence in their midst." Deliberately hurtful, provocative words, Thor had to fight a wince as his father uttered them. Despite Odin watching him closely for his reaction, in front of them Loki seemed utterly indifferent. "I give you leave to reply."

Tense moments passed. Loki, unsurprisingly, was silent, persisting in his refusal to speak even semi-voluntarily to his family. Odin's brow pulled down with thunderous ire.

"If you have anything you wish to communicate, now may well be your last opportunity for some time. Once I've modified your silencer, your guard will have the key control of to whom and when you may speak. And Hogunn is well known for his brevity."

Next to his father, Thor stirred uneasily. _Father is wise! He is all-knowing! He must _know_ that the Bifrost works, else why strip Loki of the seidr he could use to save himself in a disaster!? This must be a test of Loki's loyalty, his remorse! I must have faith in Father. He knows what he is doing. But does Loki? Oh, my brother!_

Loki's silence stretched, moments into minutes, into aeons, becoming - for Thor - ever more unbearable. If the Bifrost failed, if Loki died attempting passage between worlds for the good of Asgard, then to have his last free-spoken words be of anguish, of despair, of mistrust (_Have not my word for it. You won't believe me. You never do.) _was more than Thor could bear!

"Brother, please! _Please!_" His voice cracking as he all but begged. "Be sure your Bifrost works before we do this! Remember, you risk both yourself _and our sheild-brother_!"

In front of him, Loki stirred briefly, eyes darting towards the guards - the exit - his carefully closed face a study in nonchalance highlighted with cracks of the finest madness seeping through. Wild, unpredictable, it was as if his brother were gone and in his place sat fire and madness and chaotic genius and nothing even remotely Asgardian. If he heard Thor's plea to guard the life of his shield-brother, Loki's own sometime comrade in arms, he gave no sign.

Seated beside him, Odin sighed heavily, raising his hands towards the collar around the mischief god's neck.

"There's a narrow line between genius and insanity, Loki, and you tread upon it." The one-eyed king noted ponderously, seidr gathering in his palms with an obvious effort.

"Tread it? No, Odin of Asgard, I never tread it." He paused, a vulpine grin slashing across his face in a glint of teeth and too-bright eyes. "I dance it."

The unsettling leer remained, unwavering, even as the bonds around Loki's neck and arms and feet thickened and darkened; more obviously shackles than ever before, though the two links that hung from each manacle remained uncoupled. Loki's head remained high, even as he struggled to stand under the increased weight, as the faint luminescence of seidr that always threaded beneath his skin damped down to a mere whisper.

Leaning back, more spent than perhaps he cared to admit, Odin waved the guards forward.

"Take him back to his forge, to the Bifrost and guard him there. I would not have him do anything . . . rash. Sir Hogun will join you shortly."

When they had gone, when he was once more alone with his son, Odin turned to the crown prince.

"I will send you now." He stated simply. "You will travel to Midgard, and ensure their preparations are adequate. Though I know well that they've every incentive to treat Loki's arrival with the utmost caution anyway, they will not be happy with his return. Even bound and silenced and with his seidr damped, he is a threat to them. You must show them our good faith by your presence, and ensure they see the new Bifrost as a boon; I would not have them tamper with that anchor point while it remains Asgard's sole link to Yggdrasil." Standing heavily, Odin gestured briefly to the blond god.

"Offer them what aid you can, my son, but prevent them from slaughtering your brother. Asgard has need of him yet."

"Yes, Father." Thor nodded, his grip around Mjollnir tightening as the familiar tingle of transit raised the hairs on his arms. _Though I'd protect him anyway, and you know it!_

Then, he had no time to think. Then, the sky split and the lightening rose, and he rode it and Odin's seidr to Midgard.


	13. Chapter 13

My humble apologies for the delay in posting. Real Life pulled a rather impressive Hulk Smash on me. I've picked myself out of the metaphorical floor, though, and hopefully things should progress reasonably steadily now. Many, _many_ thanks go to those who have commented and PM-ed me; your support makes a huge difference.

LOST CREATURES XIII

The landing site - a helipad atop the re-christened Avengers tower - could not have been more perfect if Odin had intended it (and for all Thor knew, he had; his last trip to Midgard at Odin's behest had placed him not twenty meters from the in-transit flying machine in which his younger brother had been confined.)

When Tony Stark, the man of iron, heard of his visit, he ordered the finest Midgardian beverages opened and ready to toast within minutes.

When Tony Stark heard of _the reason_ for his visit, he had the other Avengers, and S.H.I.E.L.D., and 'a few military favours' assembling within hours. And he did so while simultaneously - to Thor's consternation - attempting to convince his ladylove Ms. Potts to evacuate from New York - despite Thor's protestations that Loki would come leashed, not a threat, not a challenge and _not_ staying.

The Midgardian alcohol, it seemed, was ready to go to waste and - tellingly - the man of iron could not have cared less. If nothing else, Thor noted sourly, he could not fault Tony Stark's assessment of his brother's gift for chaos though the iron warrior's bitter certainty that not even _Odin's_ plans to restrain the trickster would hold was more than a little insulting. Still, it was the Midgardian's world; he had a right to set in place means of protecting it.

It was SHIELD who brought Jane Foster, and Thor both loved and hated them for it; while Stark relaxed marginally at the safety of the situation that Thor's ease with her presence implied, Thor himself would have been happier had she been absent. Loki - while he would arrive every bit as restrained as Thor promised (and Odin had seen to) - was nonetheless fickle, a wild card well capable of smashing any plan to bits. He'd long ago proved to Thor his cunning versatility against overwhelming odds and 'invincible' foes, and while his most recent ploy - the attack on Midgard - had been a clumsy disaster, Thor grimly held no illusions that that would remain the status quo.

But Jane Foster was a joy, a light, and a breath of fresh air to the relentless worry that had characterised Thor's thoughts since Loki's recapture and sentence, and the thunderer could not bring himself to resent that. She and her assistant, Darcy, (now graduated and a fine scholar in her own right, or so Thor understood) were a a cheerful contrast to the grim black suited SHIELD operatives that they travelled with; like Eric Selvig before her, Jane's research was now funded and supported by SHIELD and - despite their initial quarrels - the work into the Einstein-Rosen bridge had been proceeding apace.

Or so it seemed; when he came upon Jane the morning after her arrival, sitting with Stark and Banner amid a small wasteland of coffee mugs and four tall, white boards coated with equations, she was enthusiastically gesturing to a point. Standing unobserved in the doorway, Thor took a moment to enjoy her graceful movement, her joyous enthusiasm for her 'science' (he thought that was what she called it, anyway.), her dark hair, her sparkling, vivacious eyes. . .with a mental shake, Thor brought himself back from his daydreams, listened to her words.

"And that's as far as I've been able to take it, Doctor Banner," She grumped.

"Please, call me Bruce."

"Bruce, then. It's as much as I've been able to work out so far. I was hoping, when I heard Thor had arrived, that someone had been able to film the event, so I could get more data. But realistically, even that might not help. Two years, I've worked on this, and I still can't develop it past this point!"

"Have you tried asking Thor how it works?" Bruce asked, seemingly genuinely interested in the answer, even as he ignored Tony's faint snort.

"Yeah. He can tell me - has told me - how it feels to travel via the bridge, and what the colours look like, but as to how it works?" She and Tony shared a look, equal parts frustration and indulgence.

"Magic," they chorused. Bruce smiled at that, though in the doorway Thor felt stung: His ineptitude to explain in detail rendered him incapable of meeting a request of his ladylove, unable to provide her a boon - and such a small one - that she so desperately desired and so richly deserved. This quest for knowledge, her passion for 'science' had brought them together in the first instance, and Thor was loathe to see it remain unserviced.

But perhaps there was an opportunity here. Perhaps, he thought with a flash of glee, he could kill two bilgesnipes with one stone; he could both please his ladylove and aid Loki's rehabilitation. Striding into the room with a spring in his step, Thor's half-formed thoughts were rewarded by Jane's brilliant smile as she saw him.

"Good morning, Thor," she giggled as he swept her up in an embrace.

"Good morrow to you, my lady," he replied, setting her gently back on her feet. "I have an offer for you," he gestured to include both the man of iron and the green giant's Other in that offer.

"I know that it burns, to not know how the Bifrost works, to be unable to grasp fully it's machinations. And I? I am a warrior. I cannot explain it's inner magic now that it stands rebuilt any more than I could have in it's original state. So I will have Loki explain the Bifrost to you," he stated grandly, his smile undiminished by the nonplussed expressions that met his pronouncement.

"Uh, Point Break, I thought you said Loki was going to have that Asgard muzzle of yours on throughout the visit."

"Loki is silenced and bound, and will arrive ever more tightly fettered; the gag is . . ." He hesitated to use the word that had drawn such frustrated irritation from his ally and love earlier, but really? he had no other words for the art, the siedr, that his father had wrought. "Magic. The bonds are magic. It is enchantment of a kind that holds him quiet but enables me to force him to speak should I choose to allow it."

" 'Force' him. . .?" Jane, oddly, wasn't smiling and seemed to have ignored the use of the word 'magic' for what she had always argued had to be a readily explicable phenomenon. Nonetheless, seized by enthusiasm, Thor continued. "Indeed, the shackles allow any member of the royal family to force his obedience. Rebellion is . . . unpleasant for him. It is how Father has commanded his devotion to the grand labour that forms part of his penance."

Caught up in his own enthusiasm for his idea, Thor failed to see the darkening thunderclouds gathering on Stark's brow, the worried lines on Banner's face, the slightly nauseated look Jane wore. Here was an opportunity to give his Midgardian beauty the knowledge she so cherished!

"But, Thor," she protested, shooting a sidelong glance at the preternaturally still man of iron."I have you to explain what it feels like to travel the bridge. Why would Loki's experience be different?"

"Why, because he won't just have travelled it for this test," Thor noted, surprised by Jane's apparent uneasiness.

"Oh?"

"No, Loki can explain it to you because - shameful as it is to acknowledge such a skill in one of the royal family - Loki is the one who built the new Bifrost."

Utter silence met his pronouncement. The centre of their speechless attention, Thor preened.

"Why is it shameful?" Darcy asked with exquisite, quiet care, as she set down the tray of fresh coffee she had brought with her as she and Pepper had entered earlier. Her actions were as calm and deliberate as if she were defusing a bomb. One with a broken countdown timer. "I mean, this discovery, and his subsequent invention of a means of on-demand activation - if it works - is one that should at the very least net your brother a Nobel prize for physics."

"At the _very_ least," Banner nodded, half an eye on Thor, half an eye on an uncharacteristically silent Tony.

Thor waved off their talk of 'prizes', whether 'noble' or not, with a gesture. There was to be no reward to come from Loki's punishment. He would not allow it. "He is a Prince of Asgard, adopted or not. This fascination with seidr - what you term 'magic' - is unseemly, unmanly, and un-princely. His habit of creativity is no more to be encouraged now than it was when he was eight, though punishing him out of it has proved ineffectual in both instances. I grant you that this time the results are vastly more desirable, but that is because Odin has him on a short leash with very specific instructions as to where to direct his inventiveness, and very clear repercussions should he fail."

The ominous hush that followed his pronouncement made Thor look around room uneasily. Surely, his generous offer of Loki's assistance should have been met with gratitude at the very least, if not overt joy!

White-faced, silent, Tony stalked out of the room, Pepper hot on his heels.

Thor could only stare after his erstwhile comrade in surprise, unable to discern what could have perturbed his staunch ally so much that he could not even muster enthusiasm for a quip or jest. Before he could raise enough breath to ask why, the call came through; there was a storm brewing, and it had all the hallmarks of a Bifrost being opened.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: as always, comments and constructive criticism is eagerly sought. This chapter's a bit dialogue heavy - let me know how you think it went.


	14. Chapter 14

LOST CREATURES XIV

When Bruce and Pepper catch up to Tony, it's in one of the subsidiary labs on the sixtieth floor; fully equipped, but infrequently used. There are no windows, and the stark white and chrome of the decor is unsettling to the two, both of whom are used to the tang of diesel and oil, the grime of engine grease, and the faint redolence that the synergy of electronics and arc reactor usually sends thrumming through any workshop frequented by the billionaire genius.

There's coffee, though. There's always coffee. In this instance, an ugly brown stain that still runs and drips, spattered across the far wall. Tony's staring at it with such intensity it's as though he expects it holds the meaning of life, though the shattered remnants of what had been a beautiful porcelain cup seem utterly uninteresting to the engineer. To be fair, it probably hadn't held his attention even before he threw it.

He's breathing hard, far harder than the lift trip (or even running the stairs) would necessitate. Pepper knows - and Bruce more than suspects - that Stark is fit. He doesn't advertise it, and neither of his friends are quite sure when it started, but ever since he came back from Afghanistan (or maybe back from the brink of palladium poisoning), the engineer has worked hard to be as strong, as robust as possible. Pepper would like to think it's to meet the demands of the suit, to allow him to push the limits of what he can engineer. She knows Rhodey thinks it's so he can run again. If he needs to. If trust and hope and optimism fails, and he once more has to build an escape from sweat and scraps and stinking desperation.

He looks, for a second now, like he's thinking about it.

Pepper doesn't like that. At all. The cave is half a world away, and probably blown to smithereens. Yet somehow, it's still here. Tony never talks about it, but he carries it with him. Sweat and scraps and stinking desperation.

And - possibly - the memory of someone never mentioned but greatly missed (Pepper's only ever asked the once, and she's never gotten an answer. On a good day, she thinks she must be wrong; Tony only built the one prototype suit in Afghanistan, and he'd never have left behind a friend. On a bad day, she thinks she must be right; the simple, but accurate, observation is that Tony would never have left behind a _living _friend.)

None of which is even remotely relevant. Tony's here, and he's angry (and maybe a little bit hurting, but mostly angry). But when he speaks, it's with calm, carefully modulated tones. As blandly polite as if he were discussing the weather, or complex integrated circuitry.

"You know, we let Thor take him back to Asgard. We knew that we _didn't _know what was going to be done with him. And I didn't mind, because his little temper tantrum killed hundreds _of Americans_ on our _home soil _and I wanted him gone." He drew a deep breath. "But my weapons? At conservative estimate, the things I've created have killed thousands, Americans included. Hell, the nuke I shoved through that portal to end the chitauri invasion probably counts as single-handed genocide. Better them than us, right?"

He laughed, bitterly and without humour, and Bruce flinched. "Gotta love my double standards. The hypocrisy alone should kill me."

"Tony," Pepper started, hands reaching out towards him, her tone full of understanding and threaded with a faint undercurrent of fear. Bruce understood; Tony could be at his most self-destructive like this.

"Don't get me wrong: I think Loki should be punished. He deserves it." _I deserve it_ was the undercurrent, unspoken but not unheard by either Pepper and Bruce. The raw pain of it cracking and lacerating to hear, searing in it's brutal honesty and self-condemnation. He'd spent years creating efficient destruction, deluded by the thought that only America would profit, that his country and countrymen would be kept safe by his efforts. His awakening in Afghanistan had been rude, near-fatal, and his remorse absolute. He would spend a lifetime making up for it.

"But the thing is," he noted, keeping himself together with obvious effort, pressing on with the train of thought with the frightening single-minded focus usually reserved for his experimental efforts, forcibly putting aside the ethical arguments that threatened to swamp him. "Torturing people to make them build something doesn't . . . always work out the way the torturers want it to, especially if they themselves don't understand the intricacies of what's being built."

Bruce felt a wave of chill at that, and it had nothing to do with the perfect climate control. Though details were sketchy, he had cobbled together enough information to know that Tony's kidnappers in Afghanistan had demanded he build a weapon. They had, he surmised, probably been quite . . . insistently persuasive . . . in their call for the Jericho missile.

And Tony had built, instead, the first Iron Man suit. And escaped with it.

Thor, it was long since blatantly clear, hadn't the first clue about how the Bifrost worked, let alone how one could be created. And from what he'd said in the past, nor did anyone else on Asgard; the work had apparently been failing dismally before Loki's attack, and at the time Thor had shrugged off Fury's guarded questions about whether the thunder god could rouse any more reinforcements from Asgard after confirming that the Bifrost was inoperable.

And now, suddenly, in a laughably short time and _under duress_, _Loki_ had _built_ a Bifrost. From sweat, and scraps, and stinking desperation.

Bruce recalled with crystal clarity that moment aboard the bridge where Fury calmly - if euphemistically - asked Thor about the best means of 'breaking' the mischief god. He recalled his own chilled horror at Thor's utter certainty that it could not be done, at the subtext spinning through the thunderer's words. It had been tried before.

Bruce knew - _knew - _suddenly and with absolute surety that Asgard had seen to the torture of their second prince on at least one previous occasion, and Thor had almost certainly been a witness, if not a party, to it. It hadn't worked then. Why, then, should it work now? Meeting Tony's eyes as he turned, he knew he wasn't alone in his thoughts. The inventor had come to the same conclusions, though neither were happy about it.

And Thor was bringing this Bifrost - or whatever it _actually_ was - and a trapped and bound and almost certainly lethally angry Loki right to their doorstep.

And, as the alarm klaxons sounded, it seemed he was doing it _right now._

Once again, C+C greatly appreciated.

Author's note: One of the things that really struck me back when the first Iron Man flick came out was Tony's remarkable combination of naivete and genius. This was a man who was unapologetically nationalistic with an arrogant sense of utter certainty in the _rightness_ of what he was doing ("That's how my father did it! That's how America does it! And it's worked pretty well so far.") who got a very rude awakening. He was genuinely surprised that his weapons weren't in American hands alone, _and_ that they were being used for nefarious purposes, whether by non-nationals or not. While he's remained arrogant and cocky, I can't help but think that anyone with that amount of sheer intelligence is going to have to have done some serious re-evaluating of his values in view of that, and at the very least a deeper awareness of their impact on his choices and their potential flaws. Certainly, the fact that he got out of the arms game and into the clean energy game gives quite a bit of credence to this.


	15. Chapter 15

LOST CREATURES XV

Thor's landing in the middle of the desert in the Southwest on his first trip to Midgard this millenium had been noisy, showy, and as thunderously overt as any born-and-bred Asgardian could have wanted. That desperate and banished time that he'd been hurled from Asgard on the Bifrost's predecessor had telescoped colour and energy enough to attract not only the attention of a certain astrophysicist and her colleagues, but also that of one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s monitoring subsidiaries. While subsequent events (the first modern contact of Earth with non-human extraterrestrials - 'gods' of a sort, and the subsequent Chitauri invasion) were old news, it _did_ mean that, as well as fielding teams of highly gifted hero-types, S.H.I.E.L.D. quietly and determinedly continued to build it's surveillance and research network. While indeed every known time planetfall had occurred the otherworldly arrivals had been loud and obvious, S.H.I.E.L.D. was taking no chances that that would always be the case.

In a worse-case scenario, and on a grim day, Fury acknowledged that it was entirely possible - indeed probable - that Loki had been surreptitiously in and out of Earth's purview on multiple occasions prior to his eventual invasion; how else could he have known to target Eric Selvig within moments of his arrival? What Fury _did_ know for sure was that _if_ he _had_ 'visited' in more recent times than those described in the Eddas, the mischief god hadn't been detected doing so. By anyone. So Fury worked, and networked, and liaised, (and pointedly _didn't_ give back the override access to the world's security cameras he'd commandeered during Loki's previous invasion) and built a surveillance matrix the likes of which Earth had never seen before.

It wasn't - quite - world-wide. But it was close. And if Stark Industries occasionally hacked it to aid an Iron Man mission (S.H.I.E.L.D. sanctioned or not)? Well, that was just the price of doing business in a world equipped with an eccentric genius billionaire whose technological developments had quite frankly played a large part in making the surveillance network possible. It was a price that was easily justified when S.H.I.E.L.D.'s early warning systems alerted the organisation's one-eyed leader to Thor's return. And then after hearing what the Asgardian prince had to say? Every scrap of that network was burning bandwidth as it scoured the skies, the earth, the oceans, for any trace of a Bifrost opening, any hint of the return of what S.H.I.E.L.D. had classified as the largest single threat to the ongoing existence of the planet.

Despite the high alert S.H.I.E.L.D. and it's allies maintained throughout the world, ready to mobilise to any location at a moment's notice, Loki's arrival was actually somewhat anticlimactic.

Not least because the Bifrost deposited him in New York, on the very bridge from which he had departed chained, gagged and in the custody of his brother some weeks prior.

He was still chained, and apparently still gagged, though when Tony arrived (and he made it there first; supersonic jets built into the Mark XXV suit made sure of _that_) his current custodian appeared to be neatly dividing his attention between holding an ornate crossbow aimed unerringly at a kneeling and apparently blithely unconcerned Loki . . . and vomiting copiously into the bushes.

Travel via means of the new Bifrost, it seemed, was not for everyone. Though the portal he himself had gone through had been Tesseract-powered rather than Bifrost-engineered, Tony couldn't help but send a small smirk towards the mischief god: Amateurs and their stomachs.

With the suit's helmet on and the visor down, there was no way the disgraced Asgardian would see it and Tony _knew_ that, but he didn't miss the faint responding quirk of the mischief god's mouth. _Read my body language. Gotta be._ Tony noted. _Odd that an Asgardian prince is so good at interpreting it, and doing so as part of an inter-species encounter. Thor certainly isn't adept at understanding non-verbal cues at all. _To be fair, Tony allowed that he himself hadn't necessarily been all that expert at reading body language either. He'd gotten good, though. He'd gotten very good in a very great hurry; figuring out what one's captors and tormentors were thinking had been a crucial survival skill when the Ten Rings had held him.

His smirk fell away at that. From what Thor had said - and _not_ said - it seemed possible that Loki had learned under similar conditions. Tony had a few ideas about how that might have occurred, and under the overriding tenet of 'know thy enemy', he'd set Jarvis to hacking S.H.I.E.L.D.'s video records that morning; Thor had visited Loki in his cell several times before their departure from earth, but only on the last occasion had he gagged his brother. After his own recent conversation with Thor, Tony wanted - rather badly - to know why. _What is it you didn't want to hear, Thor? Or - more importantly - was it something you didn't want Loki telling us?_ While he was still confident that Thor was a good person, and he had certainly been on the side of the angels in the last conflict, Tony knew he'd been totally, disastrously wrong about people before. _Obie played me, utterly, and I never even saw it coming. Even if Loki _does _deserve everything he gets, it doesn't mean I'm going to just take Thor's word on _anything_. _

Keeping a wary eye on the armored warrior still chundering away, Tony turned to assess Loki more fully. It had only been a month, and Tony figured any changes might be subtle, but even if he missed something important it would be worth looking. He needn't have worried; there was plenty for even the most unobservant to note, and Stark was far from that.

Thin. Painfully so. Dressed in a light, well-worn grey shirt Loki appeared frighteningly fragile. While Tony freely acknowledged he'd only ever seen the mischief god in full armoured regalia, the overwhelming impression then had been of lithe strength, a dancer's wiry musculature. The looseness of the shirt now _might_ have been fashionably intentional but, watching the deity's pants sag from a tightly-belted waist, Tony doubted it. Hunger. He remembered that feeling, remembered craving food in general, and a distinctly American type of nutritional succor in particular. Idly, he wondered what Loki's cheeseburger-equivalent would be. _If I ever have cause to find out, it'd mean that Loki'd gotten free and I'd probably have other things to worry about. Like stopping him again._

"Jarvis, do a physiological scan and compare Loki now to the footage from the Tower."

"Done, sir. It appears subject Loki has lost approximately ten to fifteen percent of his body mass - largely lipid and muscle mass - and thermal imaging suggests he is running approximately two degrees cooler. Furthermore. . ." Jarvis continued, his creator only now paying him half a mind.

Tony frowned. There was something else, there had to be. Something that had really changed. It bothered him that he couldn't - quite - pinpoint it.

_Weren't his eyes blue?_ Tony caught himself wondering. _I was sure they were._ Casting his mind back to their conversation in his tower immediately prior to his forced defenestration, Tony scanned his memory. At the time, Loki's eyes _had_ been blue. A faint, washed-out contrast to the vivid green that they were now, a green that - Tony noted with a faint frown - would have been a perfect match to the highlights on the mischief god's now-absent armour. _So either they change periodically, or they _have _changed since then._ He wasn't sure which idea disturbed him more. _Perhaps it's because he's not human, or perhaps it's a function of his current imprisonment. Thor _did_ say he would be magically bound before he arrived here. _

Resolutely shoving aside his observations, Tony half turned as Thor thumped to a landing beside him and a selection of unmarked black vans screeched up to the curb, the first spilling out black-clad S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and one very tense director almost before it had ceased moving, the second disgorging an equally determined - though somewhat more petite - scientist, who was actively engaged in batting away the restraining hands of several suited agents as she waived what appeared to be some sort of portable spectrometer at the two recent arrivals. "Leave it alone," she snapped. "I need these readings!"

While Jane herself appeared fearless, Tony couldn't help but notice Thor placing himself between her and Loki (in a manner he probably thought was 'casual') as he moved towards the recently arrived duo. Loki remained kneeling, a faint tension thrumming through those narrow shoulders while the nameless warrior who appeared to be his jailer _finally_ straightened up, purging apparently complete. Despite this, Tony was somewhat impressed to note that the crossbow never wavered. _An amateur at traveling this Bifrost, but maybe not such a bad choice for a prison guard after all. _

Now that there was backup, now that he _could, _Tony let the reality of the situation splash across him like a bucket of cold ice, the exciting clarity of _new,_ of discovery, of _science_ firing his imagination in the way that only science and invention could.

_He did it! He _actually_ did it! Not a trap or a mass destruction device at all! That gloriously crazy lunatic invented a means of targeted, survivable interplanetary travel via a modified Eistein-Rosen bridge!_ Not even the fact that it was _Loki_ - more or less synonymous with viciously insane megalomania, in Tony's book - could dampen his enthusiasm.

In front of him, Thor ignored his brother, bellowing a greeting to the warrior who'd braved the Bifrost with him. "Well met, brave Hogunn," he grinned, clasping the man's forearm in his own solid grip and seeming genuinely pleased to see other Asgardian. It wasn't lost on Tony - or anyone else - that he carefully avoided getting in this 'Hogunn's' line of fire. "I am pleased you are both safe and well; you risked much in fulfilling your duty. This means the trial run is successful; a Bifrost exists and functions once more." For his own part, the other warrior merely nodded gravely.

Turning, Thor gestured grandly to Tony, S.H.I.E.L.D., and an apparently completely pre-occupied Jane. (Whatever readings she'd just gotten must have been fascinating, given her utter disinterest in the proceedings. Tony wasn't worried; all his own data readings from the suit were being recorded even now for later perusal.) "Allow me to make the introductions; these are the brave warriors of Midgard. Sir Stark, the Man of Iron. Sir Fury, leader of these stalwarts of S.H.I.E.L.D.. And the Lady Jane, who is not a warrior." He smiled fondly at the astrophysicist who, feeling his gaze, looked up and smiled back before returning to her devices. "To these, and the other Avengers - brothers in arms to whom I shall introduce you - I would have Loki given the ability to reply. They have questions for him, and those queries are his purview alone to reply. In the interest of the ongoing friendship between our worlds, I would have them answered."

Giving his prince a long, measured look, Hogunn nodded once. Walking over to the kneeling Loki, he touched a finger to the heavy, ugly-looking collar around the shackled brunet's neck. Obeying his crown prince, Hogunn's gravelly voice growled out the names, "Avengers. Fury. Lady Jane."

The effect was instantaneous. Broad arcs of electricity sprang out from the collar, tracing paths of lancing agony across the mischief god's skin. Loki's back arched even as his still-kneeling legs spasmed, mouth open in a silenced scream. The effect lasted mere seconds, and before anyone could move to help (if indeed help they could, or would), Loki slumped forward to the ground, eyes closed and breathing heavily as faint wisps of smoke rose from battered-looking skin.

Tony felt ill at the sight of it. He was pleased to see Thor appeared uneasy as well; apparently the thunderer hadn't expected this 'upgrade' of Loki's bonds to have had quite that effect.

One witness, however, seemed utterly unfazed - if not actually pleased - by the turn of events. A deft, crouching leap carrying him from the roof of the van where he had perched with his own bow at the ready, and Hawkeye was pacing towards the slumped mischief god, anger in every line of his body.

He stopped well short of the prisoner - for there was no doubt that was what Loki was, what with the manacles around his wrists and ankles still glowing with the dissipating energy - looking him over with a mix of disdain and wary caution.

"'Crushed' is a good look on you," he snarled, restrained revulsion showing in every line of his body. "Forced to kneel yourself in front of those you would have enslaved. Still think humans are 'made to be ruled'?"

It was a rhetorical question. Tony knew that. Heck, _everyone_ present knew that. Just a chance for the wronged archer to get a few verbal hits in, and really? nobody could begrudge him the opportunity.

But apparently that wasn't how the magic restraints worked. The prisoner had been asked a question. The question had come from one who was to be answered. The prisoner would reply.

Wether he wanted to or not.

Panting, writhing on the ground as more sparking charges played over his skin, Loki forced his eyes open even as blood ran from a bitten lip to stain the concrete beneath his cheek.

"Oh, the assessment is still quite correct," he said, the dulcet tones of societal politeness sounding stomach-churningly dissonant, coming hoarse, torn and blood-stained from an unwilling mouth as they were. "You _were_ indeed made to be ruled." Harsh panting gave the only hint to the pain the bonds were causing him. The bonds and, perhaps, the words they were forcing out of him.

"Humans were made to be ruled. But as a species you've long evolved past that. Besides, I have better things to do."


	16. Chapter 16

LOST CREATURES XVI

Rocketing back through the pollution-tainted air of the New York skyline as an odd sort of escort for the convoy of vans below him, Tony couldn't help running Loki's comments through his head, looking for the hidden meaning he was certain was tucked in among the snide vituperation and savage defensiveness. It was entirely possible - and even highly probable, Tony knew - that Loki was simply messing with them with the words (say rather the weapons that he made of them) that Thor had granted him limited use of. Mind games on any level were well within the mischief god's purview, and the alert, weapon-readying tension that thrummed through this 'Hogun' whenever Loki opening his mouth gave Tony the distinct impression that Loki's usual methods of attack were subtle, devious, and anything but clumsily violent.

"Be calm, good Hogunn," Thor had clapped his warrior-follower on the shoulder, responding to the other's wary alertness as S.H.I.E.L.D. bundled the disgraced alien in question, along with his guard and his brother and several heavily armed agents, into a fortified tank of a van. "Loki's speech is too limited for him to talk us into destroying each other."

That had been _interesting_, Tony noted grimly. As an offhand comment coming from his _own brother_, it told quite the story about Loki's abilities: Obviously, on at least one occasion, Loki had managed to take his opponents down by doing precisely that.

_And this is the being you chained up in a forge with a box of scraps, under constant surveillance and threat of torture, to build something beyond your understanding. _The arrogance of the Asgardians took Tony's breath away, as did the sheer unnerving certainty that Loki _could_ have built whatever he needed (or wanted) in that forge. He'd built a Bifrost - and who knew what else - but he'd built a Bifrost. And it _worked_, and now he was on Earth. Chained, bound and still under Odin's locked spells, but still on Earth. _What is he planning?_

_He's right here. Sitting in a van underneath me. Having at least nominally fulfilled the requirements that should see him set free. _ The thought was sour in Tony's stomach. Loki free in New York, again? That could not bode well for the continued existence of the city. Unless that was what Thor's father had intended; get what he wanted, thus enabling his own world to finish dealing with the mischief god, then 'free' him only to see him in a situation that almost guaranteed that - regardless of the collateral damaged caused in the process - he'd end up incarcerated by the next group of people he had wronged, namely Midgardians. Midgardians who may not be so . . . cold-heartedly practical about his punishment. Midgardians who might settle for pain and death, a fate Odin himself was obviously unwilling or unable to bestow on the trickster, rather than enslavement and forced inventiveness.

Boy did the Asgardians have a surprise waiting for them, if they thought _that _was likely. _As if any government - whether or not they paid lip-service to the spirit of Geneva at the best of times - would let a _non-human_ capable of single-handedly inventing inter-world travel in under a month just be killed off or locked away. _The arms race that could - would - be triggered by Loki's sheer presence in one nation or another made Tony's blood run cold. _The detente of the Cold War would have _nothing_ on the scrabbling desperation that _that _would cause._

_But then, really, they've no intention of letting him go on Earth, do they? That much is obvious._ Part of him applauded that, was relieved that the mischief god was bound too tightly to escape and rampage with the reckless glee that had characterised his previous efforts. Part of him - a surprisingly large part - was quietly terrified by the notion of just what an angry, wronged Loki would be capable of when he finally forced the issue and held Asgard to their word. Tony himself had blown an entire network of caves, packed to the brim with militants, to kingdom come when he'd won free of his own captivity.

"It was an interesting turn of phrase, Sir, was it not? Particularly in light of his previous comments." Jarvis noted unexpectedly, his tones echoing quietly through the earpiece in Tony's helmet as a red light lit up on one corner of his heads-up display, indicating that their conversation was shielded and thus private. Tony perked up at that; obviously Jarvis had gotten the older recordings of Loki's previous captivity, and of course he'd heard the latest utterings tortured out of the brunet's mouth.

Always interested in his creation's analysis, Tony cut his external mike and played along. "Oh, why's that?"

"Loki said '_the_' assessment was quite correct, that 'humans were made to be ruled'. But he took no ownership of that assessment. At no point in the past has he failed to claim any of his ideas or comments as his own. But this one point? A point on which he based an entire invasion? This one he's apparently declined to own."

It was a big call to base an analysis of Loki's motivation on the choice of a single word, and in the absence of any other evidence. Still, Tony was disinclined to dismiss it out of hand; Loki was a master wordsmith. Even shackled as he was, the Asgardians - who had dealt with him for quite literally aeons - feared his command of the spoken word enough to severely limit his ability to use it. And with that sort of virtuosity? Each word, each inflection, would be oh so carefully selected. So. Was this a hint? A clue that his collaboration with the Chitauri had not ended with their decimation, and that something else was coming? Or was it simply Loki, trying to play with their minds and introduce seeds of doubt and suspicion like only he could and then sit back and watch as they tore themselves apart?

Mind heavy with the possibilities, Tony gave the call exchange signs almost mechanically. Jarvis fed him the wind conditions around the landing pad of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying fortress, (which had steadily been lumbering into position in the bay of New York in preparation of taking on board their latest prisoner) and Tony ghosted to a landing on the helipad cleared for his use. Either way boded ill.

A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

If their inter-world visitors had hoped for a respite, a pause to allow the Bifrost-induced nausea (or the Loki-induced anxious tension) to settle, they were to be disappointed. No sooner had the unmarked van been ushered aboard than its occupants were unloaded; snipers manning the high points and corridor intersections as the group passed through, with armoured guards surrounding a heavily-bound Loki as his hobbled gait - for Fury was taking no chances, and the leg-irons were heavy, titanium, and as closely linked as the handcuffs that manacled his wrists behind his back - shuffled him down into the bowels of the ship. While his bonds had been designed with a certain green rage monster in mind, they fit over the heavy, ugly Asgardian shackles as if they'd been made to measure, limiting the wild, feral grace the mischief god had displayed on his last free rampage to a painfully ungainly shamble.

Despite the forced awkwardness of his movement, Loki stood tall and proud, shoulders as straight as the weight of his bounds would allow him, eyes flashing an orgulous fire even as he limped into the circular cell that - while again designed for a creature much larger and greener than he - had nonetheless managed to hold him captive until he'd used sleight of hand, seidr, stratagem, misdirection . . . or perhaps simply sheer cunning to trick his way out of it (and trap Thor in it) before.

As soon as he was secured in it, Fury appeared, pacing to stand directly in front of an ugly rust-coloured stain on the gunmetal grey wall opposite the cage as he stared through the clear barrier at the fragile-seeming captive within.

"I trust I don't need to point out the ant-boot dynamics of this particular insect cage to you again." He started, staring grimly at - though not into - the flashing green eyes of the chained mischief god within. "And as you're currently the biggest single threat to this planet, I think we'll skip the offer of a magazine and go straight to the questions, though I understand Odin's made sure that won't be . . . pleasant."

In front of him, Loki didn't blink, didn't move, didn't even seem inclined to acknowledge the S.H.I.E.L.D. leader's presence at all, let alone the implied threat of his words. Suddenly irritated, Fury found his lips thinning. _Fine then, if that's how you want to play it, we'll do this the hard way. Pain. Simple, rhetorical questions, and the pain that they will cause. You forget that I have the upper hand here._ At the Bifrost site he'd noted the agony that had thrashed Loki's body at the instigation of Hawkeye's question, and - despite Thor's utter certainty that it would be a futile exercise the last time he'd broached the issue of torturing the mischief god - Fury couldn't quite believe that that pain couldn't be turned to his advantage. _Get some answers from the evil sonofabitch. _

"Well then, Mister Threat," He remarked, "I take it you can hear me through the cell just fine?"

The fine tracery of lightning, once again sending a rippling torment dancing through muscle and pirouetting down nerve, raced through Loki with magic powered ferocity as it forced an answer Fury was certain the trickster would never offer willingly. Indeed, it seemed as if staying upright, shoulders tight, was all the shamed prince could manage. Fury gave himself a moment to feel grim satisfaction at forcing a reaction, even as the torture itself turned his stomach, before Loki's response tore away his complacency.

"_Excuse_ me?!" Loki drawled, sparks shimmering through a too-wide smile, a slight tighness around his eyes the only evidence of the agony the mischief god _had_ to be feeling. "_Your_ organization is the one that tried to build weapons of mass destruction using an unattached, unstable, and - might I add - increasingly _pissed off_ Tesseract as some sort of mere _non-sentient_ power source, and _I'm_ the one who's deemed the single largest threat to the continued well-being and structural integrity of this planet?!" Pausing, he drew in a deep breath, "Actually, if I wasn't too busy being horrified about how little insight that demonstrated, I _might_ even be flattered."

"What do you mean?!" Fury snarled, well aware his tenuous grip on the 'upper hand' of this interaction - if ever he'd had it - was well and truly slipping.

But this time Loki didn't answer. As the arcing charge of the enchantment attempting to force him to speak surged higher and greater, and the straight-backed prideful stance of the captive genius gave away to a bowed wobble before finally he crashed bodily to the floor of the cell, lax unconsciousness softening the vulpine sharpness of his features as the last of the magic dissipated - apparently the result of its victim losing awareness - Fury realised he wasn't going to. It appeared that spell or no spell, Loki would answer questions if, and when, he wanted to. Thor, it seemed, was correct; no torture would change that.

Lost in his contemplation, he failed to notice a red and gold figure moving behind him to enter the chamber that housed the cell. coming to stand just back from the viewing platform, next to the ugly rust-coloured stain that nobody could bear to clean away fully. That is, he failed to notice until, chill and dry and with a desolate remoteness Fury had never - in all his time dealing with the tempermental genius - heard in his voice, Tony Stark spoke.

"What did you do? Fury, _what have you done?!"_

Author's Note: Happy holidays to all. Once again, I'm keen to hear what you think; comments greatly appreciated.


	17. Chapter 17

_Wow! Over two hundred and twenty reviews now! You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for all the feedback - I cannot express how much I appreciate it!_

* * *

LOST CREATURES XVII

Fury has no answer to offer Stark's raw, anguished challenge. The inventor wasn't supposed to be _here_. Wasn't supposed to be in the bowels of the ship, next to the cage holding a well-spoken monster of the highest order, but he is and Fury curses him for it. Torture is an ugly, dirty business and one that leaves the taste of bile in his mouth and the unclean feel of charred ash in his soul. It is something no civilian should ever have to witness - and for all his military contacts and contracts, for all his heroics in a suit, Tony is fundamentally a civilian; somehow he's remained naive, pure, despite his own treatment at the hands of the Ten Rings.

The idea that an American, on home soil, could stoop so low as to torture an enemy innovator isn't one that was ever going to sit well with the inventor. Fury doesn't blame him; it isn't a concept that sits will with him, either.

But the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. has long since offered the stained remnants of his soul in exchange for pragmatism, surrendered his eye for existence, and he's saved America - and the world - enough times that he can no longer regret the Faustian nature of that particular bargain. Still, he's enough of a man, holds enough integrity, that he'd have spared the inventor the knowledge of how low his cherished ideal of America would stoop, of how similar his Ten Rings captors and his American colleagues can be, if he could. The knowledge, and attendant nightmares, that he knows - _knows _for a fact, he's _seen_ the file_ - _that will haunt the sarcastic genius could have been avoided had the man been just a little less nosy, a shade less deductively brilliant.

But then, if that were the case he wouldn't be Tony Stark, _couldn't_ be Iron Man, and Manhattan would be a radioactive crater in the ground even now and by the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s own superiors.

So instead of a carefully-handled, neatly tucked away genius who hasn't seen anything he wasn't supposed to, Fury gets to deal with a Tony Stark who's broken, snapped at the sight of torture inflicted by his own countrymen; agony created using a means engineered by the thunder god he'd named ally and perhaps friend. Though his face remains poker-blank, inwardly, Fury bites back a snarl of frustration. The Director doesn't have _time_ for this, cannot spare the energy to deal with a raging, wisecracking, mobile armored suit-wearing and fundamentally _spoiled_ billionaire on some holier-than-thou kick.

He expects wrath. Expects a snarling, insult-slinging paroxysm that will probably result in in the suit's small but lethal rockets fired at him, or the cage, or the entire ship. At best, he expects Stark to leave in a blaze of fury, taking his technology and expertise (and possibly part of the ship's hull, though probably not the prisoner; Stark's not that stupid) as he goes. A part of him - the small part that's not focussed on the lethally suited ex-arms manufacturer - spares a moment to be grateful that the alien monster is still out cold on the floor of his cell; this fight is one that shouldn't be witnessed by an enemy.

But Stark doesn't rage. Doesn't snarl, or shoot first or even look like he's going to. And that, more than anything, unnerves Fury completely.

An ice-cold, self-controlled Stark is a _thinking_ Stark, a _planning_ Stark.

A dangerous Stark.

Being on the wrong side of that frigid, calculating glare is more troubling than the director cares to admit. They _were_ allies - if only of convenience - during Loki's invasion, and Iron Man's trusted both Romanov and Barton with his life before. But will that count for anything when Stark's walked in on the pure, unadorned face of abject torture?

Will it matter, when Fury might well have to continue the abuse?

Uneasily, Fury realises he doesn't know, _can't_ know. Stark isn't reacting at all like he'd been expected to; Black Widow's profiling of the inventor, created initially after her stint as his secretary and updated after the Chitauri invasion is . . . well, for the first time in living memory a Widow-written profile is utterly, completely wrong. Fury would take a moment to marvel at the event, to mark the occasion, if it didn't feel so very like he was standing on a cliff. Natasha is loyal - to the red in her ledger, if not to S.H.I.E.L.D. itself - and Stark has played her wholly and absolutely, probably right from the beginning. And that, Fury notes, just makes him ever more dangerous.

He has the intellect of a genius, and the resources of a business magnate, a suit that no one can fly as well as he himself does, and - until comparatively recently - a rather binary moral code that made him easy to use. After Afghanistan, after Obie, that code developed an anti-weaponry slant, though not (or so S.H.I.E.L.D. thought) any particular depth. Now, though, Fury realises, it probably was never that simple. Now, Stark seems like a very perilous enemy to make.

He's saved from that decision, from that _discussion_ by the wail of klaxon alarms. It takes his mind a moment to place them; they're not the 'under-attack' or 'hull-breach' alerts, and their prisoner is not yet conscious to have effected an escape attempt (thank every deity ever worshipped by man). Next to him, Stark stiffens, recognizing the tone a second before his own incredulous mind can do so.

It isn't.

It can't - _can not_ - be.

It is, and as Stark whispers a heartfelt epithet, confirmation of his own awareness, Fury finds himself wishing that it was their chained monster making his first attempt to flee. Though perhaps this is his stray thought, his 'wish' come evilly, awfully true.

"The Bifrost. Someone is opening another Bifrost!" Fury snarls, his own raw anger rising. Thor had lied to them, had insisted Asgard had only the prototype; new and untried, and that Loki and his guard alone would travel it!

The words, spilling soft from Stark's lips are almost inaudible over the harsh baying of the sirens.

"No," he demurs, head cocked in a manner that means he's scanning his suit's internal computers, absorbing and synthesizing the data fed to him with a grace and dexterity unmatched by even a supercomputer. Data pulled from who knows where, but probably at least in part from S.H.E.I.L.D.'s many monitors. The dread in his tone pulls Fury up short. "Not one Bifrost opening. Several."

Fury feels his blood run cold. Stalking away from his prisoner, from his fight - if indeed that was what were to happen - with Stark, Fury heads for the bridge. To his surprise, Stark is hot on his heels, a single lingering glance to the pitiably frail-looking figure sprawled in lax unconsciousness on the floor of the cell behind them. It seems it is just possible that Stark will hold off his tantrum, spare them all his ire, at least until the threat has been characterised. That alone would make Fury thankful, if it didn't seem even more out of synch with what he'd expected of the genius.

The chamber hosting the cell is silent for mere moments, the shackled mischief god unmoving and perhaps only barely breathing, when a lone figure steps up silently to the control panel next to the clear-walled dungeon. Deft fingers slide across the switches and levers, and with a hiss the cell door opens.

Apparently genuinely unconscious, Loki makes no move. With a muttered curse, the figure slips into the chamber, flips the limp figure over his shoulder, pausing to frown at the ease - at Loki's _lightness_ - with which that can be done.

A breath, and they are gone. Not a single alarm sounds.

* * *

Once again, comments and criticism greatly appreciated. The plot is thickening; let me know what you think!


	18. Chapter 18

LOST CREATURES XVIII

Author's Note: So it took me a while to muster the enthusiasm/screw my courage to the sticking place/man up/just get on with it and get around to watching _Captain America._ It wasn't actually quite as bad as I'd expected, being _marginally_ less of the rampantly narcissistic piece of jingoistic, self-congratulatory, racially/nationally-stereotyped hubris that I'd feared it would be. Some of the story points, however, did necessitate a bit of a re-write to make this fic more or less movie-verse canon-compliant and one particular plot point I re-jigged is going to work out to be quite cool, so it was worth the two hours spent watching, I hope. Let me know what you think

* * *

All Hell breaks loose with a quiet whisper. Dies with a muted shout; the new arrivals are openly armed, but their weapons - incongruously beautiful though they are - are not raised. If Fury had to put a name to it - to that press of bodies, that disciplined anticipation and watchful, wary alertness, the carefully non-threatening stances . . . he'd call it a parade rest.

They seem vigilant, but not tense, and the Director wonders suspiciously at their ease; there aren't a lot of them, not more than a hundred or so. That they are armed with complicated, elegantly chased spears, bows and swords (and other, more difficult to identify weaponry) and yet seem supremely indifferent to the firepower - both ballistic and aeronautical - leveled at them sets his teeth on edge. He is not used to being disregarded so utterly, for all that he's on the bridge of a sea-resting battleship and thus viewing them by remote, rather than standing in front of them himself, armed with a handgun and prepared to howl his defiance at their presence.

That they stand of the deck of that battleship is a small, cold comfort; the ship is moving, and every moment he can draw out this strange detente puts a greater distance between the newcomers and New York. A greater distance means a greater safety, or at least the illusion of it. Though the foreigners' indifference to the movement of the ship makes that dream that much more fragile.

_Damn_, but Fury is getting sick of all these aliens popping up wherever and whenever they choose, ignoring the sovereignty of his country - hell, of his _planet_ - with the sort of bored (and unthinking) disrespect Fury freely acknowledges is usually seen casually applied to insects.

And if there's ever a time when that worn-out simile is going to stop setting his teeth on edge, Fury has yet to see it.

Next to him, silently, the tall, straight-shouldered figure of Steve Rogers casts a comforting presence. Obviously, he'd made it on board on the last of the smaller jet-boats that had ferried supplies and personnel from the New York docks to the ship; the battleship itself had slipped mooring as soon as Loki was aboard, heading for open sea with every intent of swapping that for open sky as soon as remotely practical. Also just as obviously, Rogers had headed straight for the bridge _as asked_, rather than detouring past Loki's cell like a certain intrusive, irritatingly brilliant inventor. Fury doesn't even _want_ to think where the human alter-ego of a certain green rage monster is, though he _needs_ to know.

Beneath his carefully calm, impassive facade, Fury finds himself grateful for Rogers' stalwart presence, and even more grateful that the blond supersoldier has not yet had time to compare notes with the maverick inventor standing - helmet's facemask up, but still suited - just behind and to his left.

He knows how Stark feels about torture. He's pretty sure he can guess what Rogers -Captain America - likely thinks of it, given that both his first military action (and a disproportionate number of subsequent ones) was the liberation of prisoners from a HYDRA torture camp. What he wonders - in between assessing these alien newcomers - is if either of the two humans on his bridge realise just how comfortable their Asgardian comrade-in-arms is with that particular brand of violence, and precisely what effect that knowledge would have on the Avengers initiative.

He's buried the surveillance files of Loki's last incarceration so deep that nobody - not even a particularly gifted billionaire - should ever be able to dig them out again. He's buried them, but not before watching them.

"_I was chained in the dark, bound by the entrails of one of my own creations, while poison was poured in my eyes to burn out the words of the seidr I'd supposedly read, with my mouth sewn shut to stop me speaking the chants I had created."_

Yes, he'd watched the tapes, his outwardly passive expression covering the inner gut churning the surveillance tapes had caused. Watched them once, on screen. Watched them over and over again, in his nightmares. Listening to Thor's challenges, Loki's rebuttals . . . Loki was madness, pure and simple, and he lied. He must have lied, must always lie. It was what being called 'Silvertongue' meant, according to Thor; a gift for lying and manipulation. So that hadn't sat on his mind.

But the most damning comment on those tapes, the most stomach churning confession? Had come from Thor's own lips.

"_You were eight years old!"_

And _that_, most certainly, _did_ play on the director's mind. Over and over again.

A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

* * *

The still-magnificent New York skyline, battered though it was, had well and truly vanished over the horizon well before the alarms had signaled the later Bifrosts, and Fury couldn't help but wonder at the precision that had allowed this force to be landed on his deck despite that. What were they honing in on? The Asgardians?

"They don't look like Thor's people," Steve mused next to him, and Fury was mildly surprised to note he was correct. Both Thor, and the newly-arrived Hogun, (and, of course, Loki) looked at least superficially human, for all the striking physiques sported by the warriors. These . . . people . . . were bipedal - humanoid, certainly - but far too exotic to ever pass for natives on earth.

His first overwhelming impression was of paleness, of _light_. The newcomers were almost ethereal, despite their armaments. _All you'd really need to add would be a sprinkling of pointy ears, a few fancy silk shirts, and top it off with a couple of overly complicated names, and you'd have your standard fantasy elf, _Fury observed. Then his blood ran cold. Elves.

He wasn't aware that he - or Rogers - had spoken the idea out loud until Stark responded.

"If the myths are correct," The inventor observed, still unnaturally calm, still terrifying Fury with that calm, "they might well be. The _Niu Heimar_ includes _Alfheimr_, which is supposedly the home world of the _Ljosalfar_. Our 'Elves' - at least the Tolkien-y ones - are modeled on stories of them. What?" He asked at the startled look Rogers directed his way. "Didn't anybody else do the homework?"

"There was homework?"

"Maybe not exactly, but 'self directed learning' is all the rage these days, Grandpa. Though I'm pretty sure 'know thy enemy' pre-dates even you."

"Hey, we all wrote reports on the invasion, and I read each and every one of the intelligence dossiers made up from them!"

"But you didn't do a simple google search for 'Loki'?"

Stark's banter - so expected, so usual, so _Stark_ - threw Fury even more off-balance. The man wasn't reacting even remotely like he was supposed to and that added another element of risk, of _threat_ into an already volatile mix. Fury found himself half-heartedly wishing he had the time to confront the inventor, to bring the inevitable fight to _him_.

But even that train of thought was utterly derailed by the sight of Thor striding out across the deck towards the newcomers, smile blindingly bright on his face and Mjolnir hanging unthreateningly from his belt.

"Well," Rogers observed, "I guess Thor at least considers them friendly."

"They _did_ come on a Bifrost," Fury pointed out, forcing his mind back to the most pressing issue. "He probably knows them and might even have expected them." _Damn him and his false promises! A single trip! Just Loki and a guard, just to 'test' the prototype! Not that we had any say in _that_, either!_

"Doubt it," Stark shot down the idea at once. "The energy signature on this Bifrost was markedly different from the one Loki and that Hogun guy came in on. If I had to hazard a guess," he paused, frowning briefly. "And it is _only_ a guess - I haven't fully analyzed the data - I'd say they came from a different starting point, a different world, entirely."

Further discussion was halted as soon as it became apparent who was walking out with the blond god. Looking utterly unassuming - and frankly harmless - Bruce Banner stood on the deck beside Thor, not a single hint of green about him. As behind him Stark chuckled and murmured something about 'successful placement', Fury couldn't help but admire the audacity of the Avengers' ploy. The most dangerous, indestructible team member, right where he could wreak the most havoc, should the . . . elves . . . prove hostile.

And from the look of them, from the way they turned to Thor and skipped over Banner, how they kept their weapons down and their posture relaxed . . . they'd never even see it coming.

A faint, feral grin chased itself across his features as Fury strode down from the bridge, Rogers next to him, to meet their . . . guests.

A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A

* * *

Fury chose to let it amuse him that the elves remained cautiously friendly towards Thor, but dismissive of the humans who come to stand beside him, himself among them. He certainly finds it encouraging that their weapons stay down, though he doesn't feel even the slightest obligation to meet the same standard; Hawkeye and a host of other ranged snipers have the group subtly well-covered, and the ship's self-destruct remote control is a heavy, comforting weight in the pocket of his own leather coat.

Despite that, the atmosphere is cordial, and Thor's booming laugh rings out as he arm-clasps one of the warriors in a greeting that is as much a show of strength as of any affection. They seem to be reminiscing about some sort of hunt - if a 'Bilgesnipe' is indeed an animal - undertaken on a diplomatic visit between their two worlds, and Fury pays them only half of his attention, the rest seeking out the _actual_ leader of this 'delegation', rather than merely the figurehead talking to Thor.

It's hard to tell; they're all dressed similarly, and there seems to be no discriminators of rank, no single leader the others defer to . . .

Until suddenly, there is.

All it takes is one Asgardian taking his 'proper' place at his Prince's right hand, and it isn't even Hogun's presence that does it. His obligations, perhaps. His orders. But not his presence.

His overriding duty is to protect and serve Thor, the Crown Prince of Asgard. His current orders are to guard - to restrain - Loki during the Bifrost test. The taciturn warrior has simply chosen the most expedient way of doing both; as Fury bites down on a snarl, the Asgardian slings his shouldered burden carelessly to the deck beside him in an unconscious tangle of sharp angles and skin pulled taut against too many jutting bones all wrapped in frayed, ill-fitting clothes and heavy shackles. Behind him, the director feels his temper warp beneath his iron control. There is no way Loki - shackled, battered and unconscious post-torture though he is - should be here and not in his prison. _Allies don't break each other's prisoners out of holding cells, dammit!_

Loki stirs as he hits the cold metal, lifts his head with groan as his face spills clear of the hair that had covered it, and the effect is instantaneous. There is a sharp intake of breath from somewhere within the ranks of the elves as he is recognized.

A heartbeat later - in eerie, instantaneous unison, without a single verbal command - each and every one of them brings their weapons (both those overt and several that were previously hidden) to bear on the battered mischief god.

_Well, at least they've got their priorities right,_ Fury noted grimly even as he shouted for everyone one to calm down, to stand down.

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Once again, comments and constructive criticism much welcomed and greatly appreciated.


	19. Chapter 19

LOST CREATURES IXX

In the end, 'calm' wasn't a problem. At least, not for anyone but Fury and the other agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and they were too professional to be flustered for long. Bruce had far too much experience keeping his cool through rather . . trying . . . circumstances to let a little thing like a few unsheathed weapons waving around in his general direction prompt him to anything rash. Even if exactly what the weapons _did_ was a mystery. (Fury wouldn't have put it past his new problem-visitors to be packing weapons capable of a punch as significant as the usually-unassuming Mjolnir was. It was just that sort of day.)

The elves - despite Stark opining that they should probably be called 'Ljosalfar', Fury had opted to go with 'elves' - were utterly, pragmatically, ice-cold calm. _Looks like it's a day for it, _Fury noted, more than half an eye still resting on Stark. _Composure all 'round. I hate it. _He had, not-so-surreptitiously, had a good, hard look at the inventor's eyes, half terrified that he would see their familiar warm brown frosted over with a glowing Loki-controlled blue. He still wasn't sure what was worse; the idea that Stark - arguably the greatest inventive intellect native to the planet earth - wasn't in control of his mind, or the confirmation that he _was_, and that Black Widow's assessment had just been _that_ wrong.

So the elves had drawn their obvious weapons, pulled other, less overt armaments out, and had aimed the entire messy business squarely at one slender, chained, and largely unprepossessing mischief god. _And how much of a threat must they consider Loki, if they're willing to give away the element of surprise _that_ easily? _Fury noted grimly. But waving weaponry - both overt and covert - was all they'd done.

They weren't attacking, had made no move to either strike at Loki, nor to seize him.

Indeed, as Loki hauled himself to his knees with agonizingly slow clumsiness, raised his head to look towards the Ljosalfar force arrayed against him, a sigh seemed to flow across the elves. Like a shimmering, well-armed curtain they parted - weapons still poised and aimed at the bound mischief god - to allow one of their number through. He was tall, though not so tall as others, and less muscle-bound than the man Thor had greeted with enthusiasm, and he moved with a graceless efficiency that saw the S.H.I.E.L.D. operatives - to a man - tighten their stances: Here was one who knew - _knew_ - how to move, how to strike. This was no fighter. This was a killer.

This one, this elf, was dangerous.

The elf slid towards Loki, never taking his eyes off the mischief god, never lowering his weapon. And yet . . . and yet, this one individual still managed to leave Fury with the overwhelming certainty that - pointy eared and foppish-looking or no - the elf had assessed, marked, and ranked every threat to his people. Including the seemingly discreet snipers.

He'd ranked them, dismissed them, and focussed completely on Loki. Fury bit back the unease that caused, and listened to the soft, almost friendly tones as they rolled out of a cupid-bow mouth - surprisingly quiet and pleasantly baritone. But despite the tone of voice, no succor was offered to Loki.

"Greetings to you, great Sly-One; true-named Silvertongue, and Sky Walker, and Shape Changer. He who is Loki, the Trickster." Suddenly, shockingly, the elf bowed. Chilled, Fury found himself frowning before he could school his face into its usual impassivity: The bow reminded him of the short gestures of esteem that typically presaged the more vicious matches between very _very_ good martial artists. It was not an obeisance that the elf had performed, and certainly not genuflection, but it held all the elements of a gesture of cautious regard offered to an uncertain - but respected - foreign power. It was not the courtesy offered to an inferior, to a persona non grata.

To a prisoner.

Beside him Thor stirred, obviously equally ill at ease and probably a hairsbreadth away from muscling in on the elf's soliloquy. Fury found himself glad of Bruce's unobtrusive hand on the Thunderer's forearm; hasty moves right now could well start a war. In front of them, the elf gave no sign he'd seen the check on Thor's movements, no hint that he knew any others were listening to his open conversation with the chained trickster. But Fury hadn't the slightest doubt the elf had planned to be heard; shipdeck or not, _nobody_ pitched their words to carry like that unintentionally.

And why should the elf be discreet, when his words rocked the very core of Fury's beliefs?

"The last time I saw you, you were similarly bound: The Chitauri were flaying you bodily even as their control nexus half-possessed and consumed your mind. And yet there was never a doubt in my mind that, silenced and tortured though you were, you had them exactly where you wanted them."

"He was tortured. . .?" Sickened, Thor shoved the thought ruthlessly away. It would keep. So would the conversation he was going to have with his brother, by the Allfather's beard, whether Loki wanted it or not. But right now? Right now he had an elfin ambassador's nasty insinuations to deal with; Loki was silenced, so his defense would fall to his older brother.

"'Had them where he wanted'-? Are you out of your mind? No one endures the Chitauri's talent for giving pain because they want to!" Thor thundered, bluster covering his unease at the elf's revelation, and his own realisation that - even when offered a chance to speak - Loki had kept silent about it. Torture? Punishment of Loki by his family and liege was one thing. That, even if it got a bit . . . out of hand . . . was justifiable: Even though only by adoption, Loki was a member of the Royal family of Asgard. It was up to the Royal family to make sure he lived up to that, whether by encouragement or more forceful persuasions. But torment by another group entirely? Suffering inflicted by anyone but Asgard's noblest of families? That was unacceptable.

"Have a care, Prince of Asgard; your Heimdall is not the only one who can scry across Yggdrasil, and I See behind you on this very vessel two women who have bested you at least once each apiece. Do your fellow Avengers know that in the ranks lining this ship stand both the woman who injured you by accident with a vehicle, and the woman who felled you a-purpose with a hand-held lightening device? Do they see you dote upon your conqueror?" Ice-blue eyes stared unimpressed at a snarl-lipped Thor, the elf seeming utterly unimpressed by the flexing muscles and angry flush of a being twice his size.

It was the Asgardian prince who looked away first, and the elf who continued unruffled.

"I agree being captured and tortured by the Chitauri after he fell from the Bifrost probably was not his plan, but when it happened, well, he made it work for himself. Even bound and battered, he manipulated them perfectly; our seers tell us the Chitauri knew he had a mind-bond with the Tesseract after he 'let it slip' during a torture session. The Tesseract was on Midgard, out of reach. So they sent him, a world-walker who had proven he could survive the Spaces Between Worlds without a portal, after it."

A lightening turn, and those disquieting eyes rested squarely on the head of S.H.I.E.L.D. _I think I liked it better as a bug beneath notice. Easier to sabotage the arrogant than fool the wary._ Fury noted with gritted teeth. But the elf spoke on.

"Tell me, Director Fury, though he was sick, injured, and more than half-mad, how long did it take him to gain ownership of the Tesseract once he arrived on Midgard? Ten minutes? Fifteen?"

"Two." Fury acknowledged, the words unwillingly pulled from him by the jewel-like gaze of the elf - alien - in front of him. The elf whose 'scrying' had appparently easily allowed him to know Fury's name, know that he stood as the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Attaining that knowledge without being a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a feat unmatched on Earth, as yet.

The elf who had - like all his fellows - completely ignored both Fury himself and every other human on board the ship on their arrival. The arrogance suggested by that sat poorly with Fury. At least, he hoped it was arrogance. If it were confidence - and it likely was - backed up by an ability to out-spy an organisation built of spies, then S.H.I.E.L.D. was in for a world of hurt. But in front of him, the slender speaker was continuing, and his words made the director's stomach churn.

"It's a testament to his will power that the Tesseract did not immediately subjugate what portions of his mind the Chitauri had left undominated, though I'll wager he never physically touched it." Fury frowned at the certainty in the elf's statement. It was true; the tesseract had been packed into a suitcase by a mind-controlled Eric Selvig, and carried out of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s base by a similarly subjugated Hawkeye. At no point could the director remember seeing Loki touch the cube in question. In front of him, the elf continued inexorably.

"But when he had it, and had spread the Chitauri control to gain the minions he needed to create the portal the Chitauri Geas forced upon him, he could have done so anywhere in the world. He travelled from your America to the realm of Germany in the blink of an eye! Why not, then, create the portal somewhere remote and allow 'his' forces to mass fully before striking, rather than risk defeat of the vanguard and premature destruction of the portal? But he did not; he deliberately provoked your ire in this 'Germany', established which continent would provide the strongest resistance, chose a jewel of a city on that landmass, and set up the portal there. And he did so after intentionally seeking out and provoking the rage of each and every one of the Avengers. Then, to make sure, he gave them something to exact retribution for; he gravely injured the one individual who was a lynchpin for them all. The human, Coulson, was correct in his assertion: Loki _did_ lack conviction; conquest was never his goal, uniting the Midgardians against the Chitauri, his supposed 'allies', and actual tormentors, was!"

"It was Fury who argued that Coulson should not go unavenged! It was Stark who realised that Loki was making it personal!" Steve Rogers objected tightly, jaw clenching.

"Exactly! Loki watched you all through the mirrors, through the dark. From that space in the corner of your eye where movement and light flickers and is gone, he scrutinised your every move. He observed long enough to work out exactly how to make things play, such that each would enact his role. And you, you lost creatures, performed your parts admirably.

"In one fell swoop, despite being half-possessed and largely driven mad by the Geas burning in his mind, he ensured the defeat of the Chitauri so conclusively it will be generations before they again threaten the universe; he forged Midgard's most effective defensive weapon, the Avengers, into a team so potent it will likely deal with an entire invasion fleet as easily as it did just the Chitauri advanced forces; and by forcing the Midgardians to bring the two of them aboard your airborne vessel - thus enabling Thor to discover your human penchant for weapon-mongering - he ensured the thunder god would insist on the Tesseract being cached in a shielded vault in Asgard, which at that point was no longer connected by a Bifrost and thus safely out of reach of most of the Realms!

"Each time, he manipulated events to his advantage; first, the Chitauri, into making him their agent rather than merely their prisoner, secondly, the humans, into destroying the Chitauri's military capabilities. Thirdly, the Asgardians, into securing vigilant safeguard for the Tesseract. Each time, he did this while bound, or imprisoned, or tortured, or all three."

Turning, he faced the gagged and fettered trickster god.

"And here you stand before us; once again manacled, silenced, friendless, weaponless, your magic bound, your talents forcibly turned to the bidding of others," The elf's eyes narrowed, "Leaving me with no doubt in my mind that you are, right now, the most dangerous being in this world, possibly all of creation."

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This is somewhat of a change in writing style, and a great big wad of plot development - let me know what you think. (i.e. C and C greatly appreciated.)


	20. Chapter 20

Apologies for the delay in posting and my lack of replies to several of the comments you wonderful readers have written me; I've been without internet for the last week, and have only limited access now (and I've chosen to put up an extra - albeit short - chapter rather than reply to the comments in this internet access session, but bear with me, please!)

* * *

LOST CREATURES XX

Loki didn't look up, didn't blink, but Tony had no doubt that he heard. Every. Word.

_And an almost equal certainty is that he's probably plotting how he's going to use that little speech to his advantage._ The thought set his teeth on edge; If the Ljosalfar who was standing there - utterly unprepossessing and completely dangerous - was correct, then the last 'little' invasion had been Loki's strike against his _own_ captors and erstwhile torturers. Meaning that Loki's main focus during the invasion had most probably been on the utter destruction of the Chitauri, not the conquest of earth at all. _I gotta hand it to him, Loki's flair for misdirection is exceptional. _Tony noted, a certain grim admiration growing. That admiration was almost a shield, protection against the realisation that was slowly, but inexorably, developing.

Fighting back against your tormentors, with little regard for the collateral damage, no matter how great? Perhaps even deep inside - well hidden from everyone who might ever have held that you were a good person - feeling a certain joyous glee at the destruction and pain you were causing for those who hurt you? Yeah. That wasn't beyond comprehension; that was . . . uncomfortably, even distressingly, familiar.

Yeah, Tony could get that. Tony _had_ gotten it, had understood it perfectly for a horrible, glistening moment a million miles away in a broiling sand-ridden desert hell, in the charred remnants of what had been a cave system painted in the blood of the only friendly being for miles around, in the remote regions of a country that had been at war - usually savagely, brutally so - since the start of recorded history . . .He'd gotten it. Absolutely and completely. And the familiarity - the _understanding _- of that feeling left the sour taste of bile in the inventor's mouth.

He'd never known if the Ten Rings had held other prisoners, other innocents in that cavern-based warren of darkness and cruelty. He'd never asked, never been let loose from his workshop long enough to find out, except right at the end when instead of begging for freedom he'd _taken_ it. That bitter, soul-wrenching end when he'd taken himself, and his first Suit, and run.

The worst part was? After Yinsen died, he hadn't even cared if there'd been others to save. He'd just run. He'd fled, and _hurt_ those he could on the way, hurt as many of his tormentors as were stupid enough to try and stop him, desperate to _get out_. He'd blown up a cave full of who knew how many militants - and who knew what, or who, else - because it was there, because it was _in the way_. Wincing internally, Tony forced his mind away from that train of thought, back to the present, to something that wouldn't leave him soul-gutted and aching from the misery of it: Away from that insane agony of similarity.

Focus. Focus on something else.

Half a city leveled, a death toll in the hundreds, a radical shift in the entire human race's philosophy regarding alien existence . . . and it was just a byproduct. An unintentional consequence of little or no importance to the creatures standing in front of him now.

_I'm getting pretty sick of my planet and my species, let alone my country, being permanently relegated to 'collateral damage'. _Familiar, comforting; the shift of his thoughts from anguished to angered was a desperately needed balm to the inventor, and he grasped it gratefully.

_Even Thor does not consider us a force worth reckoning with; If he did, he'd never just have grabbed Loki out of our custody - and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plane - in that first instance! He needed a pounding by both Captain America _and _me with my Iron Man technology to re-think his strategy and actually _negotiate _with us. To ask us for help. Before that, he considered us weak, though worthy of his protection. But 'protected' or not, if his friend Hogunn is typical of Asgard, if these Ljosalfar are typical of their own world and culture, then I think 'weak' is a dangerously unsafe role to occupy in this universe, _Tony calculated mentally, more grateful than he could ever recall for his ability to shift his thinking from the emotive to the abstract by sheer force of will. Though having started, he couldn't help following that thought to its logical conclusion: _The only one who seems to think we are - or at least could be - a power in our own right is _Loki_, who may have wanted to rule us because of it, but equally might have only cared about our capabilities so he could use us to destroy the Chitauri. Either way, that's more faith in humanity's capabilities than either Thor himself or Asgard in general has ever demonstrated._

_The Chitauri. The people, army, species . . . whatever . . . that tortured him._

_Just like Fury did, right now._ And Tony felt himself grow cold with that thought. _Humans - S.H.I.E.L.D. - tortured Loki. And we're allied with Thor, and through him with Asgard. Which has a population - or at least a royal family - who seem to have made brutalizing their second prince something of a national pastime recently, what with the gagging and pain-forced inventiveness and the funky electro-shock torture-bracelets they've strapped on him. _

_The torture equipment that Fury and by extension - at least to Loki, probably - all humanity just demonstrated we'd have no compunctions about using._

_Fury. Oh, Fury, what have you _done_?!_

He wasn't - quite - terrified (or so he grimly maintained to himself), but Tony was more than ready to admit to a deep-seated gratitude that the Tesseract wasn't on earth anymore. At least that was one source of power denied to an alien so powerful he had been - and still was, on occasion - referred to as a god. _There's something to that thought, to that idea, that I need to think about more,_ Tony noted, frowning. _Something important._

But more distracting was the sudden chill in the air; more than just the cold of his realisations it seemed. Tony's suit prevented him from noting the temperature as more than a number flickering in a corner of his heads-up display, and the new alloy limited the icing problem to temperatures well below that which he'd been exposed to even in the hard vacuum of space when he'd flown through the portal. But still, it was cold, and getting colder.

_The wind chill factor isn't _that _high._ Tony noted, just before a small red light on his HUD started flashing. Something large was approaching. Large and, apparently, cold.

As a sheet of ice - a floating fortress of an iceberg - surged towards the ship, Tony could only stare at the people standing on it. Enormous, blue, the very air around them crackling with the cold, and armored in living ice. _Big blue giants,_ the inventor thought faintly. _Big. Blue. Giants._ _Of course; the alarm earlier was for more than one Bifrost opening, and I - we all - thought that was just for the elves. Its a larger contingent than we've ever seen use a Bifrost in a single ride, after all. But what if the elves _did_ actually travel all together, at once, and not on multiple bridges. That would leave at least one more Bifrost alarm - one more opening - unaccounted for. _

_Well, unaccounted for except for _them.

Next to him, he could see Thor tense, his lips curling into a snarl as he loosed Mjolnir from his belt, beefy hand tightening on the leather wrapped grip. "Jotnar," he growled, shifting to a combat ready stance, lightning already starting to crackle around the hammer in his fist.

"Jotnar. . . Jotun" Tony murmured, fitting the pieces together. "From Jotunheim. Frost Giants."

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Once more, comments, constructive criticisms and feedback greatly appreciated. Let me know what you think!


	21. Chapter 21

LOST CREATURES XXI

_This chapter took rather a lot of doing; it's been rewritten three times. Once when I just hated what I'd written and binned it, once when the computer crashed and took out the replacement draft, and once more when I modified the sequence of events in the plot, necessitating a complete redraft. Hopefully, it's worth the wait._

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Thor's movements were limited by a soft touch on his forearm, dissipating his aggression almost instantaneously. Pale, almost waxy in its translucency, and deceptively gentle, the hand stopped the Thunder God in his tracks. Drawing in a shaky breath, Thor reveled in it; in the first time since the mercurial god's binding, since his punishment, that Loki touched him both voluntarily and gently. Not rather trading of blows and daggers and vituperation, for all it was a physical check, it was a silent request as much as anything. _A first step towards healing, perhaps_, and Thor couldn't bear to bring it to an end.

Slowly, regretfully - desperately hoping he was doing the right thing - Thor let the gathering lightning go, Mjolnir sinking back to its' usual, comfortably quiescent weight.

Though the hand that brushed against his arm was warm - a gentle restraint somehow still as unbreakable as any bond forged by Dvergar or enchanted by Odin - and long fingers were a soft pattern against his skin, the icy cold of the heavy shackles around the misleadingly delicate wrist above the hand felt nastily chill against the bare skin of Thor's forearm. _Is this how Loki feels the bonds all the time? Or is the sensation muted by his Jotun nature?_ Faintly, Thor found himself hoping for the second - though the pale of Loki's skin and the vivid green of his eyes made that seem highly unlikely. The first. . . well, the cold of the manacle was bitingly, cruelly unpleasant; a hairsbreadth away from actively painful, perhaps, but _only_ that hairsbreadth. Thor could easily imagine it wearing away at Loki's resources, a constant, aching reminder of his confinement. Of his punishment, of his _reason_ for punishment, perhaps.

_But not so bad as when he was eight, _Thor comforted himself. _Not actually painful, at least to touch. Maybe. From this side, anyway._ Resolutely, he ignored the observation that, while at eight years of age Loki had only been required to _suffer_ for his seidr, this time he'd had to _use _it whilst simultaneously _also_ being forced to _regret_ it.

_The Ljosalfar are wrong; Loki will not seek out Asgard's destruction as revenge for being justly, rightly, disciplined. Especially when this punishment is less than that of his childhood. He did not engineer our downfall then, so he will not now. He loves us, loves me, and understands why I helped with his equitable, honorable punishment when he was eight - I _know _he does. And he will understand again now, as he is corrected again, why it is necessary. He wants - he _has _to want, desperately - to be worthy of Odin's love and esteem. Fulfilling his sentence is the only way to do that, especially if the Ljosalfar are right, and he was weak enough to fall prey to the control of the Chitauri. Such feebleness, in a prince! A stain of this magnitude on his family honour will sit poorly with Father; Loki will be hard-pressed to restore that esteem, even with his punishment to provide redress. _Uneasily, he pushed away the memory of the insight he'd attained in the forge what seemed like a lifetime ago; back when Odin had first challenged Loki about his designs, plans, and notes for the Bifrost. Resolutely, Thor quashed the nagging observation of how from that moment he could no longer recall seeing Loki display any hint of affection, of love, indeed any sign of anything other than wary caution - and thinly disguised apprehension - in his dealings with his family.

Thor knew with utter certainty that he'd been the elder brother in a family Loki had felt part of, had identified with, and - most importantly - _had_ _loved_ as a youngster. A family completed by the two sons, with a mother and (especially) a father Loki had desperately wanted to please, right up until the moment he let himself - forced himself to - slip from Thor's anguished grip, plunging through the blackness between the worlds to his death. Or so it had seemed.

_If only he'd announced his survival, called to Heimdall after he landed on. . . wherever it was he first landed. _Uneasily, Thor realised he didn't know. He'd never asked - and Loki couldn't volunteer - any information about how long he'd fallen, when and how hard he'd landed, from _where_ he'd been forced to travel after that landing to make his way to Midgard. _Midgard was at least a logical choice; it's the centre of Yggdrasil, and Heimdall sees easily there, _Thor knew.

_If only he'd not gone on a rampage on Midgard . . . If only I hadn't seen him again for the first time just to need to discipline him! _ And Thor _had_ needed to: Greetings could wait, _needed_ to wait, until after whatever insane riddle of a ploy Loki had been playing at this time had been dealt with. Thor understood that, hadn't even needed to hear it spoken; Odin's willingness to lower himself to seidr - and more, to expend precious energy that came at a cost of hastening an Odinsleep - to send his elder son after the recalcitrant younger had illustrated the point beautifully.

Though Odin hadn't loosed Thor immediately. Loki had been presumed dead by his own hand for nigh on two years before Odin had let Thor return to Midgard. _I suppose Heimdall is not as all-seeing as we thought, given he did not report to me that my brother yet lived, even without Loki calling to him._ Though on recollection, he couldn't recall ever specifically _asking_ Heimdall what fate had befallen Loki; it had been too raw, his demise too certain, to ask the Gatekeeper. Instead, he'd focussed on Jane Foster; demanding frequently, urgently, to know how she fared_. _Heimdall had been happy to update him on her progress. _I am sure, though, even though it slipped my mind to check what I had assumed, Father would have asked specifically after his second son._ _And Odin let me go - indeed, sent me - as soon as Heimdall reported that Loki had claimed the tesseract. _That was as good as sending him as soon as he knew that Loki had survived, surely. Because there couldn't have been a large gap between the two events, right? _And Heimdall must have told him first, before me, as is right and proper; the father before the brother._

But still, it was most suprising that Heimdall could not see Loki in his distress, and yet the Ljosalfar scryers had been able to. _If the Ljosalfar are correct and Loki was tortured - and I've no reason to believe they are not - then had Heimdall been able to see, had Father known earlier, he would have moved to correct that circumstance and rescue Loki _before_ he set out to conquer Midgard._

Because no matter what punishment Loki had already earned by his behaviour at that point, by the threat he had posed to Asgard, there was no way Odin would have left his second son - disgraced or not, adopted or not - to be tortured by some mere chitinous army of puppets. Especially not if they thought to use him, albeit not directly against Asgard. _And he so very nearly succeeded in the task they set him to, which means the Chitauri nearly triumphed! _Thor knew. _Had it not been for his riling of the Avengers, his choice of Stark's tower for the portal landing, he could well have been successful before we even knew his ploy was underway. _And, given Loki's skill at misdirection and sleight-of-hand, the way events had panned out gave an uncomfortable degree of credence to the Ljosalfars' version of events. Thor found his lips thinning at the concept.

_Weakness and frailty, in a Prince of Asgard - disavowed or not, adopted or not - is not to be tolerated. Allowing himself to be captured, tortured, and mind-controlled is proof of both of those traits. Father will have need, have just cause to punish Loki further for this. Unless the Bifrost is perfect, the terms of Loki's punishment not just met but exceeded, and his contrition genuine. Then maybe, _maybe_, he may escape further discipline._

_But I do not think he will manage that. While his Bifrost functions and I would welcome his unrestrained company back, his repentance is nonexistent, any remorse a figment of hopeful imagination. _

More than the icily raw breeze from the deftly-controlled Jotun iceberg, Thor found that insight chilled him to the bone. _Father will not stand for that._

The enormity of the realization was enough to distract the thunderer from what said mercurial, unrepentant trickster was doing. Which was removing his touch from Thor's arm, and shifting slowly, painfully to his feet in front of the gathered beings on the shipdeck, standing between them and the impassive visages of the Jotnar on the ice. Had Thor not been distracted, there was no way he'd have allowed his weakened, bound, unarmed captive of a brother to take such a vulnerable position._The warrior_'_s position._

Thor's full attention was returned, forcibly, when the frail-seeming brunet opened his mouth to address the frost giants, and lightning sparked from the shackles that bound him. Odin's geas was well in effect; the pain would be excruciating and the attempt at speech inevitably futile. Loki, it appeared, didn't care.

Thor did.

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Once again, comments and criticism greatly appreciated; this chapter proved to be rather hard work, and I'm keen to hear what people think.


	22. Chapter 22

CHAPTER XXII

He could feel it gathering like that first rush of clouds and wind and peril that heralds a true thunderstorm (a natural one, one of beating wind and lashing rain and dancing, sparking lightning. Oh, the lightning; unbound, shivering, transient and quicksilver. As free and illimitable as it could be - as it _should_ be - unforced by Thor's pique). In fact, tilting his head back slightly, collar chafing cold against his neck, Loki fancied it almost like the start of a proper gale. One of the ones that storms and rages and changes the face of a world with it's impetus: A brusque gentleness lifting his hair, sliding across his brow with peremptory callousness, ready to bring the lightning-laced relief of a driving, blustery rain to wash away the pain-induced sweat that still decorated his forehead after the S.H.I.E.L.D. director's pathetic attempt at torture.

It was a lie, of course: The storm. But a familiar falsehood nonetheless.

This was no mere tempest, no paltry tantrum of an inchoate Nature. This was ire and arrogance infused with every bit of vicious sadism the self-indulgent whim of the all-powerful ruler of Asgard had seen fit to lace into it.

This was Odin's work, Odin's geas. And the All-Father had decreed the victim - bearer - of that geas would not speak to any but his family and guard, or indeed at all, save when spoken to. And that geas had sensed Loki's impending attempts to articulate, and such an insult to the Allfather's decree? Impossible. The very idea, the _thought_ of disobedience - demonstrated by the silent tongue he'd swiped across parched lips - activating the enchantment, calling the coming, albeit very localised, storm. It was a threat, pure and simple. A second chance not often offered by the Allfather; _reconsider your desire to speak. And reconsider it in my terms._ Or else. Or else feel the lightning dance once more along your nerves and through your soul.

The warning would be offered once only, Loki knew; Odin was too arrogant to try any less. Disobedience would be unthinkable to most, Loki was sure, and excruciating to try.

_Ah, but Odin All-Father, you forget that you souvenired me from Jotunheim during the last war. I am by birth a frost giant. Perhaps a blood relative of someone on that very iceberg. _Loki nearly laughed at the thought. _Certainly, far closer by blood descent than to any who stand on this ship. _Such a pretty way of turning the old Asgardian's machinations against him._ If I need to._

He was pretty sure that by now? He'd figured out the geas, as clumsy and brutal a bit of Seidr as he'd ever seen. Beyond that, and more importantly, he was utterly certain he could beat it. _At a cost. A cost to myself, of effort and attention. And at the cost of letting Thor and his pet warrior know that I can overpower an _Odin-laid_ geas at will, albeit probably only temporarily. That's information I'd be cautious gifting to them. At any rate, why bother, when I can probably circumvent it? Or at least make it look as though I can._

Still, there was caution needed here. Though beaten in their last war (and Loki still couldn't quite figure out how _that_ had happened - but there was a lot about that war, or at least the Asgardian version of events - that didn't make sense, and he'd long since given up on the idea of asking Odin for details to explain the inconsistencies in the official histories taught to the princes by their childhood tutors.) the Frost Giants were nonetheless a force to be reckoned with. Physically, magically, militarily, and strategically powerful. And, on their homeworld, with their peculiar bond to their land, supposedly undefeatable. _Strange how I managed to forget that, how blurred that became, after I found out I was one of them. At least, physically._

Worlds away, with pending peril to sharpen his wits, Loki found it curiously remote, and distinctly less painful, to think about the disastrous events that had led to his literal fall.

It hadn't even been the devastating shock of watching his skin turn to blue on Jotunheim. That perversion of everything about himself he thought he'd ever known had broken his heart, but left his mind and soul achingly, glaringly crystal clear; his ability to _think_, to analyse and assess and plan, completely intact. No, it hadn't been until he was back on Asgard, deep in the vault under the palace, not until he had picked up the Casket of Winters and felt the echoes of a trapped and sealed soul - _his_ trapped and sealed soul - through the box. That was when reason started to slip, and rage to boil.

He'd opened the box then. And its emptiness, its desolately blank interior, had shattered any fingernail grip on sanity he'd ever managed to scrape together. The casket had felt like a prison, devoid of a prisoner. _They say the Casket is the heart of the Jotnar's world, but perhaps it is simply what holds that heart. After all, what is a casket if not a box for the securing of contents. _And those contents had been gone. _And I was Jotun enough to know it, and be maddened by it, even then._

And the aching tug on his soul had pulled _and pulled_ and he'd spiraled after it into ever more madness. Desperate _not _ to be Jotun, not to be a monster half of whose soul lay nestled in a box. _Jotnar souls are bound to the soul of their world, via the Casket. It's another of those things that I never understood about their invasion of Midgard; how on earth would they hope to hold it for any period of time when half of their souls were bound to the soul of their home world?_ The inexorable decay of Jotunheim after Odin's conquest, the fading of her populace and the shifting of the ice, the Jotnar move to _existing_ rather than _living_ had been bound up with the looting of the Casket. The box that held the wintery soul of their planet.

Except that the Casket was empty. Powerful, well-able to masquerade itself as the looted heart of a world chained into the vaults of Asgard, but empty.

So it wasn't really surprising that Loki's own soul had reached out, traveled the paths between worlds like he so often did with his body and mind, and followed the traces of the box's contents with the surety of a bloodhound on a scent. Or a homing pigeon winging it's way to a beloved perch. He'd reached out, and found the Tesseract. It had been like finding home, like discovering the other half of himself, the bond instantaneous and utterly complete even as it completed him, Loki. The Tesseract.

Chained on earth, forced to power weapons when it should cradle worlds.

Loki's mind had shattered completely at that. And the rest, as they say, was history.

History that had led to now, to standing on a human ship in the middle of a human ocean, with Ljosalfar on one side and Jotnar on another, Humans behind him with their token princely Asgardian mascot tucked in at their side. All in one place, and all arrived recently.

He'd stepped into the protector's position almost without realising it, and while the idea that he could defend anything while under an Odin-laid geas was probably laughable, Loki had more than a few ways to work around that. Besides, being underestimated was a common occurrence, and Loki was well practiced at taking advantage of that. Of course, he had no intention of even trying to protect those on the ship or the iceberg; let the Asgardians and humans and Ljosalfar sort themselves out if they had to fight. There were more important things to do.

The fabric of this world, of Midgard, had been stretched thin by so many arrivals in so little time to such a focal place. While Loki knew his own Bifrost caused minimal damage to any world - he'd taken pains to ensure that while creating it - the same could not be said of the Ljosalfar's cloud bridges, nor the Jotnar's frost tunnels, and certainly not of Odin's lightning-seidr transport of Thor.

And there were messy, pollutant traces of those pathways that clung to the unearthly visitors, strands of tension on the skin of the world. It weakened Midgard. Made it closer to the Spaces Between Worlds. Closer to the _things_ that dwelled there.

Loki shuddered at the thought, and that small movement was enough to have Thor tightening his grip on Mjollnir, frown deepening as a snarl curled across his lips even as Banner laid another warning hand on his arm, certain it was the frost giants that caused his erstwhile brother's shiver.

In front of him, the lead Frost Giant smirked at Thor's poorly restrained ire.

"Why, young Prince, you don't look happy to see us. How strange. After all, we were invited."

What?

_What?!_

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And the plot thickens! Once again, comments and criticism greatly appreciated.


	23. Chapter 23

_Author's note 1: Please be aware (and be kind - no spoilers) I've not yet seen Iron Man 3. As such, I've made no effort to work that bit of canon into this story (well, not yet, anyway.)_

_Author's note 2: Thank you all so very much for the wonderful, insightful reviews; words cannot express how much I appreciate them. _

* * *

_CHAPTER XXIII_

"Indeed," the Frost Giant continued, voice as smooth as a glacier easing across an iceflow, the mere _words_ just the tip of an iceberg with _meaning_ mammoth and hidden beneath, his smooth urbanity doing nothing to disguise the threat of violence tucked into his carefully turned phrasing as the Jotun watched Asgard's crown prince with barely disguised disdain. "we come invited by a mighty ruler, one who is also the greatest thief that Yggdrasil, the World Tree, has ever known."

Thor blinked, uncertain, at that. Had Loki perhaps-? Certainly, he'd been Regent over Asgard during Thor's banishment and their father's last Odinsleep - and had failed to establish rule over Midgard - but "Thief"? Loki was many things, an avowed trickster certainly, but to call him "Thief"? While his actions against the Jotnar were legion - regicide, attempted planetary destruction via bifrost, general deceit and incitement to invasion among them - Thor could not recall an episode where his younger brother had actually outright stolen from the icy blue populace. _Though that does not mean that such a happenstance does not exist._ He wouldn't put that past the frail little seidr-working second prince; heavens knew that Loki had sunk to so many new lows in the last few years that this one more could hardly be surprising.

But The Jotun continued, and the sheer sincerity in his words shattered the darkly accusative tones of Thor's private suppositions completely.

"Your royal father, the great thief Odin of Asgard, bade us hence."

The stunned silence that followed that pronouncement was uncanny as, regardless of species, around the ship mouths dropped open, eyes widened, and startlement was hastily hidden. Except for two: As attuned to his brother as he was, Thor couldn't help but notice - despite his own shock - that Loki's brow merely crinkled slightly, as if a suspicion had been confirmed and not an unexpected one at that; but a long-held, possibly deeply-cherished intuition. (And Loki's wild hunches were usually right, and invariably dangerous. That Thor himself had had no idea his brother had ever considered such a notion - their father! A theif! - attested to how closely quiet his trickster sibling must have held the idea.)

But while the Crown Prince of Asgard had been astonished, the erstwhile leader of his human allies was instead livid.

Fury.

Fury simply looked as though he not only _lived up to_ his name, but _lived _it. Sheer, unadulterated rage thronged through his frame, an anger so profound that had he been another, his skin would have been greening by the second. Not surprised, no, not at all. But righteous wrath scrawled a bitter snarl across his features. While the larcenous implications of what the Jotun was saying didn't interest him particularly (to the victor the spoils, and there was _such _a narrow line between 'prize of war' and 'outright theft' at the best of times; S.H.I.E.L.D's possession of Hydra weapons was living, albeit much denied, proof of _that _concept) the 'invitation' portion of the giant's allegations was a great deal more vexing.

"Care to explain why your father - _your king_ - would see fit to 'invite' representatives of a species you report he hates from a world you claim he conquered to a planet over which he holds no sovereignty, Thor?" Fury all but snarled. This, right here, this assumption of Asgardian superiority, this doing without asking, this arrogant sense of entitlement? This was ending right now. Preferably _before_ Earth became an interplanetary war zone.

Almost at a loss for words, Thor found himself responding instinctively to the human's ire. "Have a care with your tone, Mortal; Asgardian blood was shed defeating the invasion of this world by these blue nightmares and their frozen Casket! Millennia may have passed, but the debt remains."

Before Fury could gather his wits to tell the muscle-bound thunderer exactly _where_ he could put that 'debt', the newcomers responded, and in a manner that was utterly unexpected; A deep belly-laugh reverberated through the entire ice-bound force. Equal parts wildly amused and desperately bitter, it was a sound Fury knew better than he'd ever have liked, the sound of a defeated, but not yet beaten, foe. These exotic creatures, these Jotnar, may well have lost a war to Odin, but they were far from diminished by it. These aliens were utterly, completely dangerous. _And even more so if they've little to lose. _

"This world's 'invasion'? By Jotnar?" Rancorous amusement apparently genuine, the Jotun who had spoken looked to Thor as if he could not believe his ears,"Is that truly what they teach their royal young?"

"Of course it's what we're taught; it's the truth! Father was there! Laufey's monstrous plans for expansion throughout Midgard were derailed by Odin Allfather once, and he took your greatest treasure, your casket, to prevent you ever having the power to try again! Your people were on Midgard, attacking with the power of that box! Don't try and deny it!"

"Oh yes, there were Jotnar on Midgard. And indeed, they had with them that which is the heart of our world, the Casket of Winters. But they weren't invading. They were fleeing the forces of Asgard, seeking refuge from the armies of Odin. Why else come to the temperate zones where the Midgardians lived rather than remain on the vastly more suitable ice-flows of the empty polar caps if not to seek allies?"

Silence. Even the faint slapping of waves against the hull seemed muted, and given that the Jotnar could apparently construct - and steer - glaciers at whim, Fury wasn't sure that that wasn't a _really _bad sign, that the ship he'd been so keen to get airborne wasn't suddenly mired, frozen into the waters around it. _Just how powerful is this Odin if creatures of such obvious strength sought to become refugees to earth?! How much firepower are we going to need to stand up to _that_?! _Grimly, Fury determined he'd do anything to ensure his people had it, that they were armed and armed properly. His eyes strayed towards Iron Man; uncharacteristically silent, but watching the exchange with an intense interest.

Iron Man.

Tony Stark.

The genius, ex-arms creator. The man who had begotten both a power source beyond belief and weapons - _a _weapon - that had changed the face of armed conflict on Earth and beyond it. The man who'd had to be imprisoned and tortured to provide the impetus for him to do so. _I will do anything to ensure this planet can fight and win. _His lips thinned, the realisation sour on his tongue._ Anything. At. All._

But as the enormous blue frost giant continued speaking, that thought became of utterly secondary importance.

"They fled from Odin, from his avarice, from his greed and his anger and jealousy; his bitter resentment that Jotunheim held - could hold - such a treasured trust. That our world had a Heart, and that that Heart, such a precious centre, could hold and safeguard a soul of such splendour, albeit only briefly." Standing tall, eyes sweeping from Thor to encompass everyone else on the deck, the Jotun made a final pronouncement.

"Odin invaded Jotunheim. You pride yourself on the teachings of your own histories; you know this! You said yourself; 'Odin was there'! You know that Odin took the Casket from the highest temple of the land, that he wrested it from the hands of Laufey-king, and by doing so thieved away that sacred trust! You know - and you rejoice in knowing - that the Asgardian wretch eviscerated what little, woefully unprepared resistance we could raise, that he routed both the small force that tried to secrete the Casket off-world for safekeeping before it fell into his hands, and the very ruler Laufey-King himself who tried and failed to protect the rest of our people and home. He defeated us, and in doing so, he ravaged us. He took the Casket, and he took a child, and he left ruination!"

Thor opened his mouth to reply, desperate to say something - anything - to derail the glib spell this monster, this Jotun aberration was weaving with his words, to stop the considering looks his Midgardian allies were shooting towards him even as the Ljosalfar retreated behind their customary blankness, moving neither to help nor to hinder the Asgardian cause. But Thor didn't need elf aid; he was the Crown Prince of Asgard! He would not stand for such slander!

But the words deserted him. Never before had he so desperately and profoundly wished for Loki's silvery tongue to be free, to leap to his defense as it had so often in the past, weaving a slender net of supposition and half-truth to turn a situation to their advantage. Never before had the realisation of just how often that tongue had benefited him - nay, perhaps even _saved_ him - been so apparent.

In front of him, still in the position of protector (or a proffered sacrifice, Thor noted uneasily ) the second prince of Asgard stood, and the Thunder deity couldn't help but notice his brother's increasing agitation.

Oh, it wasn't obvious; no fidgeting nor the head-clutching rocking motion that had marked his time in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s cells before Thor had applied the first gag. No, nothing that uncharacteristic. Instead, this was much more _Loki_; subtle, understated, and quite possibly devastating in its fallout. A tension through the shoulders, a lightness in the balls of the feet, and a darting tightness around the eyes and lips. The picture his presented, the readiness held still, made Thor shiver slightly - a well hidden shudder of fear. The last time Loki had seemed thusly, he'd been about to - successfully - set an army upon itself using nothing more than guile and words. When Loki was like this, he was capable of deviltry and miracles. He was capable of anything.

Words. Silvery, masterful words. Perhaps Loki's greatest ability, certainly more than his seidr and unfortunately greater than his martial prowess.

But perhaps it was time trust in that ability, to have faith that Loki could once more talk his - their - way out of outright bloodshed. Because blood _would_ be shed if this continued, blood shed and ships sunk; Thor had no illusions about that. And it would be Ljosalfar and Human and perhaps even Asgardian blood, no matter how well he himself fought - and he would fight well, he knew that - but there would be casualties and one of them would be any trust he'd ever wrought among the people of Midgard. Especially if he threw the first blow. Especially if by some miracle the coarse blue giants spoke truth; if Odin _had_ in point of fact invited them.

And Jane Foster was on this ship. And that was a risk he could not - would not - conscience.

In the end, it was really just that simple.

"Loki," Thor started, softly, throttling back his ire at the Jotnar monstrosities when all he wanted was to bellow it to the skies and seas. _Think of Jane! Think of Darcy and Eric Selvig! _ "Brother, I give you leave to reply."

And while, to Thor's ire, Loki never turned - never even acknowledged the noble loosening of the leash allowed him by his brother - for once, when Thor offered his permission to speak, Loki took it.

* * *

_Once more, comments and criticism greatly appreciated. _


	24. Chapter 24

_Author's note: Thank you so very much to everyone who has offered commentary on this fic. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate it!_

_And because of all your wonderful feedback, it's been brought to my attention that some may have found that the way I portray the characters may be incompletely consistent with Marvel's comic book (i.e. print-matter rather than cinematic) canon for the Avengers. __It's highly likely this is correct; I've found the comics utterly inaccessible to newbies like myself, so have right from chapter one elected to go with Movie-verse canon for initial characterisations and events, mixed with as much modified Norse mythology as I want to put in there. My apologies for any confusion regarding which canon I'm sourcing. (__That said, I've still not seen Iron Man 3, and, judging by the trailers, will probably be unable to claim canon-consistency with the second Thor movie when it comes out later this or next year. Hopefully by then the internal canon of the story will be sufficiently established that people still find it an enjoyable read.)_

* * *

LOST CREATURES XXIV

"You need to leave. You need to leave right now."

Of all the things, pretty phrases and half-truthed prolixity, that Thor had expected to hear fall rustily from his little brother's cracked, disused lips, that was the last thing he'd ever imagined.

Not least because the sentence had the stark ring of sincere, heartfelt truth. Whatever Loki's game, he believed utterly and completely that the Jotnar must depart, and that the need was urgent enough to skip the flowery verbiage that would usually couch such a statement. Why that would be, Thor had no idea.

But Loki's carefully concealed desperation lit a flair of foreboding in the Asgardian prince's chest, tightened his grip around Mjolnir's staff almost imperceptibly. There was something afoot here. Something big. Something so terrible it sparked an unease in Loki that Thor had not seen since an ill-advised attempted jaunt to Muspelheim had landed a then-teenaged Loki in the healing chambers for nearly a month. Though at that time the incipient threat to Asgard had been dealt with (and Thor had Loki to thank for _that_ too, now that he thought about it. How had he forgotten? When had he started believing the pretty tales of his own valour and mighty battle prowess spun by the palace bards rather than his own memories?), it had nonetheless been unpleasant.

That's what it was, then.

Loki was afraid.

It was almost laughable.

Loki, afraid? Whilst none would deny that his little brother was unmanly and cowardly with his demonstrated mastery of seidr, the disgraced second prince of Asgard had nonetheless stood fearless against the might of the Avengers, warriors true and strong (including Thor himself, the trickster's own brother). Defeated, he'd undergone sentencing by _Odin_, with the justice scribe recording, without fright. He'd ridden a newly-minted Bifrost, with only his own skill as assurance it might actually work, without trepidation. Even now, he stood with his back to the human alter-ego of the monstrous creature who had so utterly crushed him without even the faintest hint of dread.

And yet Loki was afraid. Thor felt a deep, clenching alarm tighten his own gut. Though a coward (all male Seidr users were, for choosing that path, rather than the more valorous force of arms.) Loki was not - had _never_ been - quick to fear.

"Why, little second prince, you seem . . . uneasy." The Jotun grinned, displaying an ice field of even, white teeth. "We are here by invitation, by Odin's own request."

"And what did he offer you that you would accept such a summoning? It must have been something remarkable, given how much you despise the one you name conqueror, thief and foe." Loki smirked, his own insanity-laced grin almost feral in its intensity. "Perhaps revenge upon the one who killed your precious Laufey-king," Loki bowed mockingly, never taking his eyes off the blue-skinned goliath in front of him. "But I think it more likely he promised you something he will not - cannot - deliver, and he promised it in the hopes your greed for it would outweigh your caution, and thus your actions would damn you to destruction."

In front of him, the frost giant was no-longer grinning. From one side, Fury found himself almost feeling a kinship for the gargantuan blue figure; dealing with Loki, especially when it came to words, was never simple, never fun. Always risky, and invariably opaque with supposition and layered meanings.

"I think," Loki drawled, the madness in his grin wending its way into voice and manner with the ease of long familiarity. "I think he's promised you an impossibility, and you've leapt onto it with the clutching hope of desperation. I think the only thing that would demonstrably entice you to risk the now-fraught journey from your world to another is the Casket of Winters."

Silence met his pronouncement. Utter and absolute, it was as if even the world itself was holding its breath. Judging by the sudden blankness of the Jotun leader and the tension that wound through the giants' group, it seemed Loki was right. Thor felt a twist of unease; _Father is honorable, and he is just. Why would he risk this? _But there was no time to think on it as in front of him, inexorably, Loki continued.

"Of course, I imagine that, when he issued the 'invitation', he neglected to mention that the last person who held the Casket was _me_, and I can assure you it's long gone. It was destroyed in a fall from a Bifrost, shattered by passage through the space between worlds."

"You lie!"

"Do I? Do you really think I would still be standing here, gagged and enslaved, draped in Odin's geased chains, were the Casket still intact and in my possession?"

"Then you lost it!"

"Think for a minute. Had I lost it when I fell, then it is gone from Yggdrasil. It would be as out of your reach in that circumstance as in the true situation; it is utterly destroyed." Loki paused, the faintest hint of regret perhaps tinging the slight corner of his smile. "There is nothing for you here, save ruin. The heart of your world is destroyed."

The Jotnar, almost as one, howled at that. A devastated, heart-wrenching sound of loss, of hopelessness, of despair. Standing next to Thor, Fury found himself flinching even as he readied his weapon; the pistol seeming laughably small in the face of such giants. Such enormous, _armed_ giants, now - apparently - with nothing to lose.

Damn Loki anyway. Damn him for turning a tense situation into a potential disaster. Fury found his jaw clenching; it wasn't like he'd expected anything else from the manipulative little criminal, but Thor's easy trust in his brother had been a bitter blow. _Allowing the slimy little menace to speak was not smart, Odinson. Not smart at all._

But in front of him, the trickster was taking advantage of his relative freedom to continue.

"But despite that - or rather, because of it - you need to leave, quickly."

"Why?!" The Jotun roared, "Why should we?! If the Casket is destroyed, our world is severed from Yggdrasil! Jotunheim is doomed, and we'd be poor citizens if we didn't raze a world - this world - to keep her company on her inevitable decline! And, as you lay claim to regicide, we're as well to start with you! Why, then, should we go so soon!?"

Snarling in unified support of their leader, the Jotnar force lifted their arms, ice flying free and fast, looking strangely, achingly beautiful as it slid into lethal new shapes, sunlight glimmering off a hundred icy blades. _Warriors of a defeated world_, Fury noted. _No, not defeated. Dead. A dead world. Which means these are now warriors with Nothing. To. Lose._

In the face of that roar, and almost despite himself, Fury found himself rocking a half-step back, the weight of the ship's remote self-destruct heavy in his pocket; no longer a comfort, now it felt like a promise, and a harsh one at that. Watching as Thor tensed, grip on Mjolnir tightening - even as the faint whine of servo-motors in Stark's suit grew subtly in pitch, and the Captain's knees slid into a ready bend as his discus came up - the S.H.I.E.L.D. commander took a grim solace in the company around him; _We'll give them their much desired destruction, but even if in the end it is of this planet, it will not come to them cheaply! Damn the Asgardians for bringing it to this!_

But before he could give the order, before even Stark could disobey and fly into an ill-considered solo action, Loki spoke once more. His words, silvery and sincere, halted the Frost Giants in their tracks.

"Because I can make you another Casket." In a conversational tone sharply at odds with the rank darkness lurking behind his eyes, the sharp insanity in the feral smile across his lips, Loki's comment was spoken as calmly as if he were discussing the weather. "Leave now, and I will."

"Heresy!" The Jotun leader snarled, ice chips flying with the hiss of lips. "Impossible!"

And yet, Fury noticed, the enormous blue fighter hesitated, devastation warring with hope in every line of his being. It was enough to get the one-eyed human to lower his pistol a fraction; a non-verbal signal to his men and to the Avengers, to hold, to avoid combat. He just had to hope they'd take the cue.

If Thor had thought his brother tensely anxious before, it was nothing to the sharp indignation that threaded through the slender mischief's frame now. It seemed, insanely, as if Loki had forgotten fear in the face of affront.

"It was 'impossible' to build - to single-handedly re-invent - a Bifrost," He snarled, insulted, "But that didn't stop me doing it."

"You?" The giant seemed shocked, and then, almost immediately, evaluating. Assessing, judging and thinking. . . Thor didn't like it. Not at all. The Jotnar were supposed to be savage brutes, loutish monsters who had been hell-bent on conquest and domination before their just defeat at the hands of Asgard's finest warriors. Not thinking creatures, not beings that looked as if they were assembling pieces of a puzzle, generating a coherent whole. . . and looking at Loki, _at Thor's little brother,_ with an entirely new understanding. An understanding Thor himself felt sorely lacking.

"Little prince." The Jotun mused, and suddenly the title seemed less mocking as he said it. " A _second_ prince who looks nothing like the great thief Odin, nor his eldest whelp. Small, clever, and chained to creativeness by Odin. Able to handle the Casket without burning, able to carry and _use_ the casket without dying. I'll wager your skin blued to its' true colour with every faint touch." The toothiness of his grin widened, and Thor's could barely keep himself from taking Mjolnir and wiping that icy smirk from the monster's face. He hated that grin on blue lips. That look on a scarred, oversized face. It was all wrong for a Jotun. And yet somehow, it fit the monster perfectly, for all the familiarity of it.

And it was familiar; it was the mirror of one he'd seen on his little brother oh so many times. Dark, howling winter in that smile. The wild, desolate freedom of the ice and the universe and the shattered velvet blackness between dying stars. The look of Loki about to do something brilliant, something reckless, and something utterly, totally mad. Thor couldn't count the number of times he'd gotten into strife because of Loki wearing just that expression. Or been rescued by it.

And then, from a half-angle in front of him, the thunder god could see that Loki wore that self-same smirk now, matching the Jotun's unfriendly parody with his own special brand of madness, and Thor felt his world crack. Loki could - would - provoke a saint with that smile, and the Jotnar were well distant from that. But Loki was _still talking_.

"It took me twenty-one days to build a Bifrost from scratch, under duress. Before that, it took me twenty-one minutes to destroy a vast swathe of your planet in a fit of pique. I used a _human_ to build a portal to the dead Spaces Between the Worlds using the designs _I created,_ not because I couldn't do it myself, but because I needed it done slowly. Do you really believe I cannot recreate your casket and its powers?"

The Jotun moved, then, with a swift grace belied by his impressive bulk. Shifting into a ready, but non-threatening stance, his icy blade flowed back into the armor over his shoulder, re-crystallizing into an impressive carapace. Fury couldn't help but admire the casual control the giant exerted over what was obviously both weapon and element to him. What unnerved him, though, was the sheer intelligence obvious in the Jotun's face as he regarded the waif-like mischief god in front of him. _Astuteness and desperation. Not a combination I want arrayed against my world._ Grimly, he held his peace; somehow, Loki had managed to confess to a number of crimes against these people whilst simultaneously deflecting them from immediate violence. Grudgingly, the S.H.I.E.L.D. director found himself impressed. _Another reason the little menace is dangerous._

But the Jotun's reply to _that_ was completely unexpected. Rather than rage, or even the frozen, vengeful ire that Fury might have anticipated, the Jotun simply nodded as if a theory had been confirmed.

"You, little prince, are no more born of Asgard than I am." He stated, sharp eyes watching for a twitch, a flinch, however swiftly hidden. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, the giant continued. "Nor are you of Midgard. Why, then, do you want us gone?"

"You should _want_ to go." Loki snarled, humorless grin transformed into barely-contained anger. Obviously, that last verbal barb had hit home. "After all, Midgard is the centre of Yggdrasil. An easy jumping off point for, well, _everywhere._ Besides, while Asgard has been greatly weakened by two years without a bond to the World Tree, Jotunheim has been in that situation for _two_ _millennia_ since the Casket was seized. Now, at Odin's invitation, there has been all this travel to this Midgardian realm - and this specific site - by Thor, by the Ljosalfar, and finally by you Jotnar. It's weakened the barrier between Yggdrasil and the Spaces Between Worlds. It's drawn the attention of creatures . . . " Loki shuddered there, and in amongst the madness and anger, Thor could see rife fear in his little brother. It was, frankly, terrifying. Visibly reining himself in, the mischief god continued.

"The attention of _things_ that consume worlds. Debilitated worlds. Heartless worlds. Worlds whose branches are not linked to the rest of the Great Tree. I just built a Bifrost to rejoin Asgard to Yggdrasil. I made Asgard whole again; its' weakness is reversing with every minute and soon Asgard will stand as strong as it ever has. Tell me," He grinned again, all darkness and sharp, humorless teeth. "With you on Midgard, _Helblindi-King,_ how well defended is your world? How good a decoy, how much of a delaying tactic, will Jotunheim's destruction by those _things_ provide? How much time have you bought for Odin-Allfather's fortification of his precious Asgard with your greed for your Casket's return?"

In the shocked silence that met the mischief god's pronouncement, Thor was suddenly, acutely, conscious of the rushing of blood in his ears, the churning of his stomach.

"You lie!" Thor snarled out in anguished rage, almost before he knew he'd spoken. "Loki, you lie! The Jotnar and Ljosalfar have travelled _here_! To Midgard! Not to Jotunheim! If you spoke truly, then that weakening of the barrier is _here! _Father would never - _never_ - put this world at risk, and he'd never destroy Jotunheim! The only person who tried to do that recently is you!"

Panting, fist tight on Mjolnir, Thor only realised he'd half-raised the hammer when he saw the Jotnar monsters shift once more into combat poses. Gritting his teeth, he forced his hand down, Banner's hand on his elbow warningly tight.

_Father would never do that! _

But.

But Thor couldn't quite forget what Odin had told him that evening, what felt like so long ago, as they'd stood on the balcony of the Royal chambers. _"Asgard must have this link to the other realms, to Yggdrasil; without it, we are merely a bough with no connection to the trunk of the tree. No branch survives long without the support of the bole."_

Survival. The survival of Asgard had been at stake. Thor knew that: The situation had been critical enough to put Loki to work with his seidr as his punishment. Then to test the Bifrost as quickly as possible. And even if it had failed, if that reconnection of Asgard to Yggdrasil had been 'spattered inside out' along with Loki himself in a doomed attempt, at Odin's invitation there would still have been Ljosalfar and Jotnar on Midgard, travellers to strain the very barriers between Yggdrasil and the Spaces Between Worlds. Travellers to catch the attention of those inhabitants of the Spaces. Travellers to shift attention towards those worlds from whence they'd come. . .

Diversions.

It made sense.

_By Mimir's Well, it made sense_.

The Jotun King ignored Asgard's golden crown prince utterly, dismissing him and his outbust with a barely-concealed contempt that would have led to blows had Thor not been fighting the rank nausea of realisation, of new insight, that seeded the back of his throat with bile. As it was, the Thunderer nearly missed Helblindi-King's next words, though the impact of them reverberated through all the species assembled on the ship's deck.

"We knew there was a risk, leaving your tesseract hidden on Midgard in the wake of our retreat back to Jotunheim, a risk that the humans would meddle with it. We knew that if they did, depending on _what_ they did, it might send you mute, it might send you mad. . . It might turn you into the greatest destructive Vengeance, the most complete Ragnarok, that this universe has ever seen. As it was, you murdered our king, destroyed half of one of their cities and half of one of our continents."

"So even you acknowledge you got off lightly." Loki noted, his now-icy cold demeanor every bit as dislocating, as frightening, as his earlier humorless smirk.

"Even so," The blue giant inclined his head regally. "Even so."

Turning, the Jotun king gathered his warriors with a glance, a faint glimmer on the horizon and the blaring of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s bifrost-opening alarms the only indication that he'd opened a portal back to Jotunheim with the frozen blade he'd re-formed around his fist.

"You should have been my brother, little Temple-Gift. Raised and loved by my side, your ancient eyes relearning their seidr with joyous encouragement, not furtive desperation. You should have been cherished for your own merits, never lied to, never forced. Your genius should have been open, not forcibly hidden, your intelligence displayed to an appreciative audience, not the dismissive churls you were saddled with. Your abilities should have been channeled towards discovery and invention, not left with no outlet save mischief. I cannot give that to you now, I cannot unmake the past. What I can give you is this; we of Jotunheim will heed your warning." He stood tall, ice blade dissolving from his arm.

"We will accept your most gracious offer and depart."

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_Feedback is, once again, much appreciated._


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